India and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) signed an agreement on making India an associate member state of the research organisation that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

• The agreement was signed by Sekhar Basu, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti in Mumbai.
• CERN, based in Geneva on the French-Swiss border, is the world’s largest nuclear and particle physics laboratory, where scientists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the Universe by using the most sophisticated scientific instruments and advanced computing systems.
• India has made significant contributions to the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the areas of design, development and supply of hardware accelerator components/systems and its commissioning and software development and deployment in the machine.

The CERN:

The European Organization for Nuclear Research known as CERN , is a European research organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, the organization is based in a northwest suburb of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border, (46°14′3″N 6°3′19″E) and has 22 member states. Israel is the only non-European country granted full membership

The term CERN is also used to refer to the laboratory, which in 2013 had 2,513 staff members, and hosted some 12,313 fellows, associates, apprentices as well as visiting scientists and engineers representing 608 universities and research facilities