Today, Ukraine becomes an associate member State of CERN. This follows official notification to CERN that Ukraine’s Parliament has ratified the agreement, signed with CERN in October 2013, granting Ukraine that associate member status.

"Our hard and consistent work over the past two decades has been crowned today by a remarkable event - granting Ukraine the status of CERN associate member. It is an extremely important step on the way of Ukraine's European integration," said Yurii Klymenko, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva.

"It is a great pleasure to warmly welcome Ukraine into the CERN family. The laboratory has worked closely with Ukrainian colleagues over many years, and we look forward to strengthening this collaboration in the framework of associate membership," said CERN Director General, Fabiola Gianotti.

Ukraine and CERN signed a cooperation agreement in 1993, and a joint declaration in 2011, setting priorities in scientific and technical cooperation. Ukraine’s relationship with CERN dates back much further, principally through CERN’s cooperation with the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (JINR), of which Ukraine is a member.

Ukraine has been a long-time contributor to the ALICE, CMS and LHCb experiments at the LHC, and to research and development on new accelerator technologies. Ukraine also operates a Tier-2 computing centre in the World-wide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) to help to process and analyse the massive amounts of data generated by the LHC experiments.

The associate membership of Ukraine strengthens the long-term partnership between CERN and the Ukrainian scientific community. Associate Membership allows Ukraine to take part in meetings of the CERN Council and its committees (Finance Committee and Scientific Policy Committee). It also makes Ukrainian scientists eligible for staff appointments. Finally, Ukrainian industry is henceforth entitled to bid for CERN contracts, thus opening up opportunities for industrial collaboration in areas of advanced technology.