News from the September 2025 CERN Council Session

The Council and its subordinate bodies, the Scientific Policy Committee and the Finance Committee, met from 22 to 26 September to hear and discuss updates from across CERN's accelerator complex, experiments, computing and other activities, focused in particular on the preparations for Long Shutdown 3 (LS3), the implementation of the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) and the Phase-2 upgrades of ATLAS and CMS. The Member and Associate Member State delegates greatly appreciated the excellent work of CERN's worldwide community.

The Council also heard a status report on the ongoing update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP). Following the Open Symposium in Venice earlier this year, we now eagerly await the publication of the Briefing Book, additional national input and the Strategy drafting session, which are the main steps towards the conclusion of the Strategy update in May 2026. In this context, the Council approved the decision-making milestones for a future collider at CERN, and received an update on the funding prospects for the Future Circular Collider (FCC).

The Council also heard a presentation by the Associate Director for High Energy Physics of the Department of Energy, Dr Regina Rameika, on the scientific programme in the United States, including future collider activities.

Reinforcing CERN's already strong commitment to environmentally responsible research, the Council greatly appreciated CERN's fourth Environment Report, covering the years 2023 and 2024, which will be made publicly available on 13 November.

Looking ahead to 2026, the Council appointed the 13 department heads for 2026-2030, nominated by the Director-General designate, Professor Mark Thomson.

The Council members were pleased to take part in the launch of CERN's new cultural season at the Science Gateway, Generation Higgs, dedicated to youth as a driving force of curiosity, creativity and innovation. The season opened on 25 September with the screening of Cédric Klapisch's film Les vrais chercheurs ne savent pas ce qu'ils cherchent. I hope that you too will enjoy the many exciting cultural events that are scheduled over the coming months.

As we celebrate CERN's 71st birthday on 29 September, I would like to thank you all most warmly for your hard work, dedication and passion, which are at the heart of the Organization's outstanding achievements over the past decades and are the basis of a bright and ambitious future for our Laboratory.