Impact of CERN procurement actions on industry: 28 illustrative success stories

CERN is a world-renowned centre for scientific research, celebrated, amongst other feats, for its recent discovery of the Higgs boson. Behind this and other discoveries, lies a vast accelerator complex, which hosts the largest machine in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and its experiments. From its beginning in 1954, CERN has provided a unique facility to scientists worldwide. Its harsh operational conditions, subject to extreme temperatures, vacuum and radiation, as well as geophysical constraints, provide unique challenges that have led to state-of-the-art developments in many technological fields. CERN operations call for advanced expertise in three areas: accelerator, detector and computing technologies. Answering these needs has led to sophisticated developments in cryogenics, superconducting magnets, and radiation hard electronics and microelectronics, to name but a few. Industry is a key partner in this endeavour. Setting up an accelerator complex as large as CERN’s - from concept and design to full-scale workable machine - requires major involvement of industrial partners. Contracts with CERN, especially those linked to advanced engineering and state-of-the-art technology, help industry drive its innovation. The know-how acquired by CERN during the development phase is necessarily transferred to the industrial partners manufacturing components. The process allows companies to develop new products or improve existing ones. Beyond the product, it can be beneficial to the entire manufacturing processes through improved quality or novel procedures. This report demonstrates that the benefits spill over across the entire supply chain to subcontractors too, showing the extent of CERN’s impact on the industrial landscape of its Member States. As one of the drivers behind state-of-the-art technology, CERN’s procurement contracts with industry spark off real added value to society. This publication contributes to the study of the impact of CERN activity on society. It focuses on the benefits that CERN procurement actions can generate on its supplier companies. The goal is to highlight examples of successful partnerships between CERN and its suppliers and share these success stories.