Pakistan is aspiring to become an associate member of European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). The application from Pakistan for the associate membership was submitted one year back, in February 2013.

A four-member high powered CERN Technical Team (CTT) – led by CERN’s Director for Research and Scientific Computing, Dr Sergio Bertolucci – is due to arrive on Monday (today) on a four-day visit to Pakistan, as part of the evaluation process for the Associate Membership (AM) of CERN for Pakistan.

Besides holding meetings with the authorities concerned, the team will also hold meetings with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain to discuss the relevant issues, said Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Director PR Shahid Riaz. He said the CTT would assess and evaluate the scientific activities being undertaken in Pakistan. “The Team will also visit universities, scientific organisations and industrial complexes in the country,” he added.

Riaz said CERN, located in Geneva, Switzerland, gave preference to Pakistan because of the contribution of Pakistan to CERN in terms of manpower as more than 30 Pakistani scientists always work in the research organizations.

“Pakistan has a very cordial relationship with CERN, which is the world’s leading scientific organization conducting research on High Energy Particle Physics since its inception in 1954,” he said.

CERN members include 20 European countries. Recently, Israel has been accorded imembership. CERN has three associate members and five observer states including India.

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

“There are numerous benefits, if Pakistan becomes CERN’s associate member. These include engineering contracts to support CERN programmes, which will be beneficial for our industrial sector and human resource development,” he said, adding that it would also help in technology transfer in key areas of radiofrequency (RF) technology, ion beam optics, cryogenics.

More recently, it has been concluded, that Pakistan has qualified to meet the criteria in order to become a member of CERN. Bertolucci lauded Pakistani engineers and scientists and said that “Pakistan has a first class pool of scientists and engineers, a requirement to become an associate member of CERN.”

He added that Pakistan and CERN are working in close collaboration from quite some time and the work from Pakistan’s industries is favourable.

Source: The Express Tribune