2023-2024

During the 2023/2024 term, The Nine provided documents on the following topics to the Director-General:

  • FCC: The Nine was asked by the Director-General to investigate with senior staff their views on the FCC. We talked with more than 50 senior staff colleagues, covering topics such as their ownership of the FCC project, balance of importance on short/mid-term view versus CERN’s long-term future, and key aspects of concern. The Nine shared with the Director-General the summary of the interviews as well as the anonymised notes on each of them. The Nine made suggestions to answer the key observations and to support the overall FCC strategy.
  • ISOLDE: We shared with the Director-General observations related to the ISOLDE facility. We addressed three areas: rules and regulations, coordination aspects and onsite technical support and safety matters.
  • Office and Space Management: The Nine was asked by the Director-General to provide feedback concerning CERN’s Space Management Policy, focusing on office space. The Nine shared with the Director-General several aspects of importance for CERN’s space policy, underlining a collaborative approach, the involvement of the user community, the commitment of the Space Management Forum and the definition of guidelines.
  • Science Gateway: Since its inauguration on 7th October 2023, most comments received from senior staff highlight the added value of having such a “landmark” in Geneva. The Nine shared those, additional observations and suggestions, mainly related to maintenance and operation, with the Director-General.
  • Administrative and operational concerns: In our discussions with senior staff colleagues over the past years, we noticed that many issues brought to our attention are of administrative or operational nature, not linked to the strategic direction of the laboratory, high-level organisational matters, or the use of resources. We underlined this observation to the Director-General, giving some examples such as cleaning of offices and lighting of the campus.
  • IT: The Nine considers CERN to be one of the most demanding computing environments in research. Based on discussions with senior staff colleagues, we shared with the Director-General some observations and suggestions about the IT Department.
  • Staff and Fellow survey: The Nine analysed the results of the Staff and Fellow survey with focus on the figures concerning senior staff. Our findings have been shared with the survey team and the Director-General.
  • Procedures, Rules & Guidelines: Defining new rules and regulations, as well as identifying and creating amendments to existing ones, is mandatory for an organisation to adapt to a changing world and to mitigate challenges or possible risks. In the recent past, several new rules and regulations have been brought forward, among them the new Experiment Associate (EXAS) status and subsistence (COLA) payments. The Nine has prepared respective feedback and comments concerning the perceived difficulties linked to new/adapted rules, and their importance to meet CERN requirements while at the same time dealing with a diverse place with a large variety of stakeholders.