Scientific Research at CERN as a Public Good: A Survey to French Citizens.

CERN produces knowledge advances about the nature and the origins of the Universe, which can be considered a ‘public good’ . The provision of such public good is financed by the contributions of its Member States. Taxpayers are ultimately the funders of CERN’s investment projects. This report was motivated by the need to know whether and to what extent citizens are willing to pay for fundamental particle physics research at CERN and for a new future particle accelerator project that can follow the LHC/HL-LHC research programme. In particular, the following goals were pursued: 1) Assessing the public’s awareness about CERN; 2) Measuring people’s willingness-to-pay (WTP) in France (one of the two CERN host states) for an investment scenario A “CERN Member States decide to invest in a new particle accelerator in the next decade…” compared to an alternative scenario B “CERN Member States decide not to invest in a new particle accelerator…”. The study yields the following results: • Awareness of CERN in France (what it is and what research is performed) is much lower than other organisations such as UNESCO, NASA, WHO, IMF and CNRS (The French National Centre for Scientific Research). However, in absolute terms it is high: almost half of the population (46.5%) at least knows CERN and it is more known than for instance ESA, CEA and ESRF. Hence, continued efforts to raise the awareness are indicated. • There is a big attitude divide between respondents who are willing to pay (51%) and respondents who say that they cannot or do not want to contribute (49%). The willingness to pay is positively correlated, among other reasons to a previous awareness of CERN. Hence, a continued raising of the awareness and an early information about the long-term research infrastructure investment intents are key elements to obtain acceptance of the population. • The unconditional average maximum WTP for CERN investments in a new particle physics research infrastructure amounts to EUR 13.5 per person per annum. The WTP estimate was obtained through the question “What is your maximum annual amount you would pay for supporting the investment Scenario A?; • The bounded conditional average WTP of the dichotomous contingent valuation experiment is EUR 4 per person per annum. It is a non-maximum WTP and it is calculated by taking into account socioeconomic characteristics (income, gender, education, age), interests and opinions (being interested in physics, agreeing that CERN contributes to increase knowledge universe, and being aware of what CERN is and what it does). The conditional WTP was elicited by asking the question: “Would you agree to pay the amount of EUR X per year as a taxpayer for the construction of a new particle accelerator at CERN as described in scenario A?”, where X is an amount of money pre-printed in the questionnaire (see below for details). • These results have to be compared with the actual contribution that French taxpayers currently pay to CERN in the form of taxation. This actual annual contribution (2017) amounts to EUR 2.7 per person and is therefore significantly lower than what people are willing to pay. We conclude that, even adopting the most conservative assumptions, the WTP of French citizens for supporting an investment in a new particle accelerator for fundamental physics research is a factor 1.5 higher than the current actual tax-based contribution.