It is no accident that Russia has become a major partner in the CERN programme. In 1967 a historic agreement between CERN and the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Protvino, Russia, was signed, under which CERN equipment and expertise was provided for the 70 GeV IHEP machine that was soon to come on line as the world’s highest-energy synchrotron. This agreement led to continual fruitful collaboration between CERN and IHEP in particular, and it opened the door to wider EastWest collaboration in general.
In a short ceremony at CERN on 18 March, IHEP director academician A A Logunov bestowed the title of IHEP professor honoris causa on CERN personalities who played important roles in this initial exchange and in its subsequent consolidation.
