HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOURTH SESSION OF COUNCIL
11 and 12 December 2014
OPEN SESSION
LHC MATTERS
The Council heard status reports by the Director for Accelerators and Technology, Dr F. Bordry, on the status of LS1 activities and the outlook for Run 2 of the LHC, and by the Director for Research and Computing, Dr S. Bertolucci, on the LHC experiments and computing, and congratulated all the teams involved in the work carried out during LS1 on their commitment and responsiveness, soon to culminate in the restart of the LHC and a full programme of physics in 2015.
RESTRICTED SESSION
DIRECTOR GENERAL’S REPORT
The Director-General gave an oral report on the following matters:
- Recent incident illustrating the effectiveness of consolidation measures
- Conclusion of the in-depth review of CERN’s safety policy
- Partnership agreement with Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) for emergency response services and training on the CERN site
- Award of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Innovation Prize
- VIP and public visits
- Open access to data and publications
- First funds received by the CERN & Society Foundation.
FINAL REPORT ON CERN’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY
The Council heard an oral presentation by Dr S. Schmeling in his capacity as coordinator of the 60th anniversary events and thanked him and his team, as well as everyone involved in organising such events at CERN and across the Member States for their outstanding efforts throughout 2014.
THE COST-VARIATION INDEX FOR 2015
On the recommendation of the Finance Committee, the Council unanimously decided to approve: - a basic salary and stipend index of 0%; a subsistence allowances and family benefits index of 0%, bringing the overall cost-variation index for the personnel budget to 0% including the applicable indexation for home leave of 0.35%; - a materials budget cost-variation index of 1.63%; - an overall cost-variation index of 0.83%. Finally, the Council took note that, in line with the “corridor principle”, the Member States’ contributions for 2015 would be indexed by the overall cost-variation index of 0.83%.
FINAL BUDGET OF THE ORGANIZATION FOR THE SIXTY-FIRST FINANCIAL YEAR 2015
The Council took note of the final Budget for 2015 at 2015 prices and of the Management’s plans for containing the cumulative budget deficit over the period of the second long LHC shutdown.
STANDING ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON AUDITS (SACA)
The Council took note of a report on the activities and conclusions of the Standing Advisory Committee on Audits (SACA) in 2014 by Ms C. Jamieson in her capacity as SACA Chair.
CLOSED SESSION
ENLARGEMENT PROCESS
The Council unanimously decided to approve a Co-operation agreement with the Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
ELECTIONS
Professor A. Zalewska was re-elected President of the Council for a third period of one year, starting on 1 January 2015.
Professor W. Van Doninck was re-elected Vice-President of the Council, also for a third period of one year.
Ms C. Jamieson was re-elected Chair of the Finance Committee for a second period of one year.
Mr M. Bulánek was re-elected Finance Committee Vice-Chair for a second period of one year.
Professor T. Nakada was reappointed Chair of the Scientific Policy Committee for a second period of one year.
Mr B. Dormy was re-elected Chair of TREF for a second period of three years.
In addition, the Council appointed Professors Karl Jakobs, Guido Martinelli, Heidi Schellman and Yoichiro Suzuki as new members of the SPC for a period of three years from 1 January 2015, and re-appointed Professors François Le Diberder and Teresa Rodrigo as members for second terms of office of three years.
It also appointed a new expert member of the Standing Advisory Committee on Audits (SACA), Mr K. Gressenbauer, for a period of three years with effect from 1 January 2015, as well as a new professional member of the PFGB, Mr A. Cunningham, also for a period of three years with effect from 1 January 2015.
The Council appointed Mr T. Lagrange Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund ad interim with effect from 20 December 2014, until the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer by the Council in 2015, on the explicit understanding that the ad interim appointment will expire on 31 December 2015 at the latest.
Finally, the process for the selection and appointment of the next Director-General of CERN, which has been taking place throughout 2014, finally culminated on Thursday 11 December when the Council unanimously decided to appoint Dr Fabiola Gianotti the new Director-General of CERN for a period of five years, starting on 1 January 2016. In 2015, Dr Gianotti will be working closely alongside the present Director-General, Rolf Heuer, as Director-General Designate.