On 21 June, the CERN Council concluded a busy and fruitful June Session, during which several important discussions were held and decisions made.

Firstly, the delegates congratulated CERN and its personnel on the very good performance of the accelerator complex, the many beautiful physics results obtained by the LHC experiments and others, and the excellent progress made across the full spectrum of CERN’s activities.

The Council approved CERN’s Medium-Term Plan for the period 2025–2029, which describes the Organization’s scientific and financial strategy for the coming years.

Preparing for CERN’s future, the Council elected Professor Karl Jakobs, University of Freiburg, as Strategy Secretary for the next update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics and established both the Strategy Secretariat and the European Strategy Group. The overall timeline of the Strategy update was approved by the Council at its March session, setting a deadline of 31 March 2025 for the submission of community input and the goal of concluding the process in June 2026.

An important item on the June Council agenda was CERN’s International Cooperation Agreement with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), an intergovernmental organisation located in Dubna, Russia, with which CERN has collaborated since 1957. As the Council decided not to terminate the agreement, the participation of JINR in CERN’s activities continues. However, the measures concerning JINR adopted by the Council in March 2022 remain in place.

The productive June Council Session again demonstrated the strong and sustained support of the Member and Associate Member States for CERN’s mission and community and we are very grateful to them for this. We also express our heartfelt thanks to everyone throughout the CERN community for your hard work and dedication, which is at the core of what makes CERN so unique.      

You are cordially invited to a meeting with the Directorate in the Science Gateway on Tuesday, 2 July from 11:00–12:30 where more information will be provided about the June Council Session and the European Strategy update. Please register by Friday, 28 June at this Indico page if you plan to attend the meeting and the refreshment that will take place afterwards. Those who are not present in person will have the possibility to submit questions during the meeting through a link that will be added to the Indico agenda just before the event.