Quality education

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Education and Open Science are CERN’s core missions, inspiring the rising generation of new scientists. CERN contributes to making high quality skills available to its member states, through education, training and outreach with students, teachers and young researchers through a diverse range of programmes.

70000 school children visit CERN every year, to learn and awaken their curiosity for the compelling questions about the universe, one of the main goals of fundamental research. 10000 teachers have been trained at CERN since 2006 to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in particle physics and related areas, and experience a dynamic, international research environment, thus impacting more than a million students.

About 4000 school students perform hands-on experiments on modern physics each year at CERN S’Cool LAB. The “Beamline for Schools” competition engages 200-300 teams from schools around the world to win a 10-day residency for carry out a real science experiment at a CERN beam line. The “International Masterclasses” programme reaches 15000 pupils in 46 countries allowing them to analyse real LHC data and become a researcher for a day.

2400 PhD students are registered at CERN either in research, academia or industry to advance the frontiers of technology, from which 600 complete the thesis every year, continuing their career in different domains and providing a steady stream of highly qualified young people with excellent technical skills and international experience for business and industry.

CERN offers visits and exhibition programmes, About 120000 visitors per year have the opportunity to go on a half-day guided tour at CERN. 25 heads of state and 168 ministers have made protocol visits between 2011 and 2015.

"There is nothing more enriching and gratifying than learning."
- Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General