The international management of great programs in scientific research

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International co-operation in particle physics has been a model for 50 years. The success of CERN, the large European Laboratory for Particle Physics located near Geneva, is praised world-wide. CERN is an intergovernmental organization. The constitutive Convention of CERN, signed in Paris in 1953, has provided CERN with its own legal personality, enjoying an international status. CERN currently comprises 20 Member States, each being endowed with one vote in the Council, which makes all the important policy decisions on the life of the Organisation. Reinforced majorities exist for financial matters. International co-operation between physicists is not limited to CERN installations. Physicists have agreed on a policy of common use of particle accelerators world wide.. Detectors are built and operated by international collaborations from as much as 60 countries around the world. The international co-operation has resulted in a well balanced world-wide scientific policy. There is a world-wide consensus that, after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) currently being constructed at the CERN, the next great project should be an electron-positron linear collider. It should be a global project ; its international framework is yet to be defined. – Summary AFRI-2004