SCSS Celebrates Ireland’s CERN Membership with Expanded Research Ties

Ireland has officially joined CERN as an Associate Member State, marking a historic milestone in the nation’s engagement with one of the world’s foremost centres for scientific discovery and technological innovation.

This new partnership opens significant opportunities for researchers, students, and industry partners across Ireland to contribute to CERN’s world-leading expertise in particle physics, high-performance computing, and emerging technologies such as quantum information science and advanced networking.

At Trinity College Dublin’s School of Computer Science and Statistics, the announcement has been met with great enthusiasm. The School is already collaborating with CERN through PhD research on internship on quantum algorithms and communication systems, and this formal association will now allow deeper scientific exchange, expanded student internships, and broader access to CERN’s infrastructure.

Earlier this year, SCSS PhD students Vivek Vasan and John Burke became Trinity’s first doctoral researchers to undertake an internship at CERN, working on the simulation of satellite-based quantum communication links and on quantum machine learning models applied to particle jet tagging, respectively. Their placements are just the start of many collaborations expected to grow as Ireland’s associate membership takes effect.

With Ireland’s formal entry, new channels for collaboration, innovation, and mobility are now open, promising to accelerate the nation’s contribution to some of the most ambitious scientific endeavours of the 21st century.