Who is involved?

The LHC project includes 111 nations in designing, building and testing equipment and software, participating in experiments and analysing data. It is a remarkably harmonious international collaboration in which the UK has a leading role. British scientists and engineers have prominent roles in construction, management and experimental teams and the UK makes a significant contribution to the LHC budget.

CERN has many opportunities for students, postdoctoral researchers, scientists and technical experts in a range of disciplines (links to Working @ CERN) 

UK research groups involved in the LHC project.

Over the 13 year construction period (1994 to 2006 inclusive) the total UK contribution for the detectors, GriddPP (materials and staff effort) and collider was £511M. This includes the UK’s annual CERN subscription over this period. This is less than the price of one pint of beer per UK adult per year.

The total cost to the UK of participating in the LHC project will be £108M per year, including £82M per year as its national subscription to CERN’s on-going annual budget of approximately £455M. The subscription of member countries to the CERN budget is linked to their GDP. Non-member countries are also involved in, and contribute to, experiments.

The cost of the LHC project (machine and personnel) is £2.1bn, or £3.5bn if the infrastructure costs, incurred during the construction phase, and the costs of computing, GRID, early running etc are included. The cost of the LHC is mainly paid for by the 20 members of CERN, with significant contributions from the 6 observer nations.