At its 161st meeting at CERN on 16 December, the CERN Council unanimously voted to admit the Republic of Serbia to associate membership as the pre-stage to membership of CERN. This status will come into force following the signing of the related agreement by the two parties and notification to CERN of ratification by the Serbian parliament.
Serbian scientists have an involvement with CERN that dates back to the origins of the organization: Yugoslavia was a founder member state of CERN in 1954 and remained a member state until 1961. Serbian physicists have long been active in the ISOLDE facility and through the 1980s and 1990s were active in the DELPHI experiment at the Large Electron–Positron collider.
Serbia formally came back into the fold through a co-operation agreement in 2001, leading to involvement in the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC. Serbian industry participated in the construction of both detectors and the country is also active in Grid computing.
Following notification of ratification, Serbia will join Israel as an associate member state of CERN. After a maximum period of five years, Council will decide on the admission to full membership.
