2024-2025

Strengths and weaknesses of the current CERN structure: For the next Director General, 2025 will be a year of internal consultation and familiarization with the Organization and potentially a time to define a new structure with a new management team. On this occasion, we invite you to share your thoughts on lessons learned on the current way that CERN is organized: what has gone well, and what could be improved, putting it in the context of the successful start and exploitation of HL-LHC and the preparation of CERN’s next flagship project. We encourage you to let us know your insights, focusing on operational effectiveness, resource allocation, collaboration, communication, and any other factors impacting our ability to meet our goals. Your input can contribute to shaping strategies and defining a potential new structure for the incoming management team.
Engagement Survey – Workload: Based on interactions with the team working on the follow-up to the engagement survey conducted in 2023, we have pursued our exchange with HR and agreed to address workload at large. This subject was also raised by several of you, thus for the proposed study, we would appreciate your additional feedback and concerns. This will allow us to provide relevant input to the Director General.
Follow-up subject from last year’s FCC document: With the FCC moving from the Feasibility Study to the next steps, we would like to collect your suggestions and thoughts regarding the organization of the study. This concerns the organisation of the study inside CERN, the interaction with the groups and departments involved, resources, and communication. It involves both accelerator and detector design. We would like to collect your thoughts on CERN moving towards this next large-scale project.
Balance of nationalities and diversity in general: Diversity in its various aspects has already been a focus for some time, with the 25-by-25 initiative showing first good results. Challenges however remain, e.g. the MPE nationality imbalance which is a big concern also for CERN Council. This may jeopardize underrepresented member states’ support for CERN, with possibly severe long-term consequences. We would like to gather your ideas on how to improve our efficiency in attracting candidates from underrepresented countries, as well as gender and age groups. At the same time, we invite you to share with us the benefits you have experienced from diverse teams, or possible obstacles you have encountered in your attempt to foster diversity.
Five-Yearly Review context and beyond: In view of the five-yearly review starting early 2026, the Nine identified three subjects to investigate, with the objective of retaining and attracting personnel of the highest competence and expertise. We would be glad to hear your views on the actions that CERN could put in place and employment conditions that could be modified in the following domains: retaining members of personnel, especially young talents after a first contract at CERN; retaining knowledge/expertise in the context of forthcoming retirement waves; attracting engineers and technicians, especially in highly specialised and technical fields.
CERN’ s personnel resources: As one of the world’s leading centres for scientific research, part of CERN’s workforce is highly specialized, and includes scientists, engineers, and administrative staff. CERN’s aim is to attract top talents from all member states and associated member states. The personnel costs represent the biggest fraction of CERN’s annual budget. At the same time, some projects are delayed due to insufficient personnel resources. We would like to collect your input on whether we currently have the right balance between personnel and project resources, or if adjustments are needed going forward.
Lessons learned from past projects: Projects are at the core of our organization. They are instrumental to achieving its mission, and drive our ability to achieve strategic objectives and deliver value. To strengthen this foundation, we aim to analyze lessons learned from past projects and gather insights from senior staff to address related challenges. Specifically, we seek to understand the factors behind evolving project costs relative to initial cost to completion estimates, examine how project budgets are defined and managed over time, and explore why technical scopes can evolve substantially even within relatively short timeframes. Additionally, we aim to identify ways to ensure that all critical aspects are thoroughly considered from the project’s inception to enhance accuracy and predictability. Your input will be instrumental in refining our processes and ensuring the success of present and future projects.
Maximizing availability/impact of experienced/senior staff: According to feedback from some senior/experienced staff, they are not always in a position (managerial or expert) where they can give their best to the Organization. This can be due to restructuring, the end of a project, a conflict, or for various other reasons. This situation is not only detrimental for the staff members concerned, but also for the Organization that would benefit from getting the best of its entire workforce. We would like to gather your opinion on how the Organization could make sure that the staff concerned are able to give their best, share their knowledge and expertise and see their motivation enhanced, and that the potential benefit of decreased workload for their colleagues can be realized.
Impact of ageing tools/equipment: The Nine were approached about the significant impact of CERN’s ageing tools and equipment on its operations, particularly in terms of efficiency, flexibility, application, retention or engagement of younger generations, and retaining knowledge. We would be interested to hear your inputs on this subject.