Croatia and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) agreed to sign an associate membership agreement on Februry 28, Croatia's Science Ministry said on Friday.

The agreement will be signed by Science Minister Blazenka Divjak and Cern’s Director-General Fabiola Gianotti, and the announcement comes after the Croatian government decided earlier this month to apply for associate membership with that Geneva-based international physics research organisation.

The ministry said that Croatia’s associate membership would be a huge step forward for making Croatia’s scientists and research achievements more visible in international circles.

Associate membership would allow Croatia to participate in Cern-funded projects on an equal footing. In addition, the ministry said, it will help improve the quality of education and research done by Croatian scientists, and also increase the mobility of its scientists and specialists.

Such status might also open up business opportunities for Croatian companies to compete in Cern tenders, especially for software, construction, electrical engineering, and health care businesses.

The cost of Croatia’s associate membership will be 1 million Swiss francs (€880,000) per year.

Cern is a European physics science centre operating the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, as well as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a colossal test site built underground on the French-Swiss border.

Established in 1954, one of its 12 founding members was Yugoslavia, before it left the organisation in 1961. Today it has 22 full member countries, with Israel being the only non-European member of the club.

So far, the only ex-Yugoslav country to become full member of Cern is Serbia, after the organisation’s board voted unanimously to approve Serbia’s full membership in December, although the agreement is yet to be formally ratified by Belgrade parliament. Slovenia became an associate member in July 2017.

In 2016 Cern had 2,500 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members, and hosted about 12,000 researchers from all over the world.

The organisation is funded by member country contributions, which are designated according to the size of their GDP. About half of its annual €1 billion funding is financed by its three wealthiest members – Germany, the United Kingdom, and France.

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