CERN Director-General vsits Warsaw University of Technology
Commemorative photo of representatives of CERN and the Warsaw University of Technology
Profesor Mark Thomson, visited the Warsaw University of Technology, where he met with the university's leadership and researchers. The visit provided an opportunity to discuss ongoing collaboration and future ambitious scientific initiatives. WUT researchers have been conducting research at CERN and contributing to its projects for many years.
The visit focused primarily on plans for future cooperation, particularly the development of the Future Circular Collider (FCC), the proposed successor to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The FCC is expected to achieve collision energies approximately eight times higher than those of the LHC, opening new possibilities for discoveries in high-energy physics. The discussions also covered the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade programme, with particular emphasis on ALICE-3, a proposed next-generation detector that will succeed the current ALICE experiment. Its primary objective will be to advance studies of the quark–gluon plasma - the state of matter believed to have existed immediately after the Big Bang. Another topic was LHCb, the experiment dedicated to the study of heavy quarks and the search for evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. Its research aims to improve our understanding of why matter dominates over antimatter in the present-day Universe.
We expect that WUT researchers will join the global effort to develop and realise the Future Circular Collider in the coming years. The FCC is anticipated to become the largest high-energy physics project of the twenty-first century.
Prof. Mark Thomson highlighted both the necessity and the benefits of planning scientific infrastructure over very long time horizons. Projects of this scale consist of multiple stages, each requiring careful preparation, sustained commitment, and systematic implementation.
The discussions also addressed the importance of scientific programmes extending beyond major particle accelerators, including experiments involving neutrinos, radioactive isotopes, heavy ions, and antimatter. CERN provides unique research infrastructure for these fields, unmatched anywhere else in the world.
Meeting of the representatives of CERN and the Warsaw University of Technology
The CERN delegation visiting the Warsaw University of Technology included Prof. Mark Thomson, Director-General; Prof. Magdalena Kowalska, a senior CERN researcher specialising in atomic and nuclear physics; and Dariusz Drewniak, PhD, General Counsel at the Department of Innovation and Development of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Polish Government Delegate to the CERN Council.
Representing the Warsaw University of Technology were Prof. Krzysztof Zaremba, Rector; Prof. Mariusz Malinowski, Vice-Rector for Research; Prof. Wojciech Wróbel, Dean of the Faculty of Physics; Prof. Adam Kisiel (Faculty of Physics); Prof. Georgy Kornakov (Faculty of Physics); Prof. Krzysztof Poźniak (Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology); Prof. Wojciech Zabołotny (Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology); and Mariusz Wielec, Director of the Centre for Advanced Materials and Technologies (CEZAMAT).