Place: Building 61 – Staff Association room
From 1:30 to 4:00 pm
- Tuesday 3 February
- Tuesday 3 March
- Tuesday 31 March
- Tuesday 28 April
- Tuesday 2 June
- Tuesday 1 September
- Tuesday 29 September
- Tuesday 3 November
- Tuesday 1 December
Category: News
The Director General organises a meeting with the personnel on 16 December 2025 at 10:30. She has autorised access to the retransmission to the retirees.
This broadcast should therefore be accessible to all retirees having linked their CERN account with an external one (e.g. gmail.com, outlook.com, hotmail.com, laposte.fr, etc…) before their departure.
The https://indico.cern.ch/event/1621529/ should be used and authenticated via the « External email – Guest access » link.
The Webcast should then be accessible by clicking the “Watch” button.
To be noted that this is still an experimental procedure and its success therefore cannot be completely guaranteed. Please send a mail to GAC-EPA (office.secretariat@gac-epa.org) for questions or access issues.
PS: the procedure can be tested as of now, but the “Watch” button will only work as of Tuesday.
We apologize for this last-minute announcement to those of you who do not have Guest access. A procedure will be published by the GAC-EPA in early 2026 outlining how to obtain a Verified Guest Account for those who do not already have one.
Thank you for your numerous responses to our message alerting you to the possible change in the pension payment date from the 7th to the 25th of the month.
97% of you supported the GAC-EPA’s position and expressed a negative opinion for various reasons.
The analysis of your feedback was communicated to the Pension Fund, which ultimately decided not to make any changes.
This good news was confirmed by the Fund in a letter that you should have received with the pension payment dates for 2026.
We would like to thank the Fund and the Benefits Service for this decision.
Categories
December Cité Seniors
Program: https://www.geneve.ch/cite-seniors#
During the festive season, there is nothing better than sharing a good meal and meeting new people. You are warmly invited to attend the meals organised in four neighbourhood centres in the City of Geneva. You will find the telephone number for registration below.
I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and send you my sincerest wishes for 2026.
Christina Kitsos
Vice-Chair of the Administrative Council of the City of Geneva
The Staff Association is pleased to invite you to the conference on:
Work management practices and Employee health: A conflictual relationship – Prof. Gregor Bouville
How and why do certain methods of work management affect employees’ health?
Tuesday 16 December – 5:30 p.m. 503/1-001 – Council Room
Conference in French
For more information and registration: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1606354
Dear Members,
I am pleased to invite you to the traditional GAC-EPA end-of-year drink that will take place
Thursday, December 4, 2025 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
on the mezzanine adjacent to CERN’s main auditorium (building 500/1-001).
In the hope that you will be many to attend, please accept our sincerest regards,
Catherine Laverrière, President
Dear GAC-EPA Members,
The ‘Groupement des Anciens du CERN et de l’ESO’ cannot remain insensitive to the conflict and humanitarian situation in the Middle East.
Like many around the world, the GAC-EPA is observing with growing concern the humanitarian consequences of this conflict, with millions of civilians, the majority of whom are children, deprived of water, healthcare and food and exposed to extreme violence.
Unable to remain silent in the light of these conditions, the Staff Association sent a letter to the Director-General and the President of the Council, which was published in Echo 459 on 2 October 2025 (https://staff-association.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/Echo/2025/459.pdf).
Our Group naturally supports and endorses the Association’s approach and emphasises in particular CERN’s primary objective, which is science in the service of peace and humanity.
For its part, the GAC-EPA recalls that, in its resolution CERN/3626 of 8 March 2022, the CERN Council stated that ‘the aggression of one country by another is contrary to the values that the Organisation defends’. We believe it is legitimate to apply this same requirement for consistency to any situation involving flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.
Yours sincerely,
Catherine Laverrière, Chair of the GAC-EPA
Dear Colleagues,
As announced in the last Bulletin, a new CERN Community Support Centre (CCSC) branch will open in the Main Building on Wednesday 1 October.
Set in the former Travel agency’s premises next to UBS desk, this new, modern and functional facility will offer the following services to any member of the CERN community holding an access card:
- First-line support for all CERN services
- Access card renewal
- Visitor access card management
- Vehicle registration
- Contractor and Temporary personnel information maintenance
- Network and connectivity (e.g Wi-Fi, etc.)
- Computing accounts management and 2-factor authentication
- YubiKey Management (Requests & Settings)
- Telecom Services: SIM/eSIM, mobiles, IP phones, etc.
- Eduroam: registration, certificate renewal
- Hardware drop-off, setup, repair request
- Software licences (e.g Office, PDF, etc.)
- Material: borrow or purchase material (e.g chargers, cables, etc.)
- General questions about IT services or software
The Service Desk, the IT-SOS and Telecom services and the Uniqa desk have already moved into these new premises.
Find out more about activities for seniors link
Categories
Herwig Schopper 1924-2025
The Director-General has just announced the sad passing of Herwig Schopper, Director-General of the Organisation from January 1981 to December 1988.
We, the retirees who knew and perhaps worked with Herwig Schopper, echo the tributes paid by the Organisation and the scientific community and express our sincere condolences to his family.
The full text of the Director-General’s message is below:
Dear colleagues,
It was with great sadness that we learned that Herwig Schopper passed away yesterday at the age of 101. He was Director-General of CERN from January 1981 to December 1988.
Herwig Schopper played a central role in shaping CERN into the prestigious laboratory that it is today. Involved in CERN’s research since the 1960s, he held several key decision-making roles from the 1970s onwards, including Chair of the ISR Committee from 1973 to 1976 and member of the Scientific Policy Committee from 1978 to 1980.
During his term as Director-General, his scientific vision and diplomatic skills played an essential role in securing the approval of the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) project, and then in successfully leading the construction of this accelerator, the largest ever built. He contributed to CERN’s global expansion and was one of the architects of the international cooperation model for the LEP experiments, which paved the way for today’s large experimental collaborations. His mandate was also marked by the discovery of the W and Z bosons by the UA1 and UA2 experiments at the SPS proton-antiproton collider in 1983, which was recognised by the Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer the following year.
In the years that followed, Herwig Schopper took on major responsibilities, serving on the scientific councils of several laboratories and presiding over the German Physical Society and later the European Physical Society. One of his greatest achievements was SESAME, the international centre for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, of which he was a co-founder and the first President of the Council.
We have lost a brilliant scientist and one of the greatest contributors to CERN and to our field, who really embodied the core values of our Laboratory. We have also lost a cherished friend who was admired for his insight, his dedication and his warmth. CERN was at the heart of his life and, until his very last moments, he cared deeply about the Laboratory.
On a more personal note, Herwig was a true source of inspiration for me. Throughout my two mandates as CERN Director-General, he provided me with his strong, unwavering support, sharing his wisdom, advice, vision and extensive experience, for which I will always be deeply grateful.
He will forever remain in our memories.
Obituaries will be published in the CERN Bulletin and the CERN Courier shortly.
Kind regards,
Fabiola Gianotti
The funeral will take place at 2.00 p.m. on Wednesday, 27 August, in Hamburg, Germany:
Friedhofskapelle – Rupertistraße 37 – 22609 Nienstedten, Hamburg