At CERN, the Learning and Development service provides members of the community with numerous opportunities to develop their skills, broaden their horizons and put new approaches into practice across a broad range of courses and workshops.

The course “From needs to solutions: insights” is a good example of this. It allows participants to better understand their actual needs, clearly define problems and identify appropriate solutions. “At work, but also in everyday life, people sometimes fail to ask the fundamental question of ‘why?’ and focus instead on what they believe to be a need but is in fact already a solution: new software, a new newsletter, a new smartphone.The problem is that, to be able to choose the right solution, you first have to accurately identify your needs,” explains Stephan Petit, the man behind the course, from the Engineering Department’s Quality Management Support Service (Accelerators and Technology Sector). “That’s what this new training course offers: a new, more critical way of seeing things, allowing you to identify and express your real needs and put suitable solutions in place.”

Intended for members of the CERN community, the course, which lasts two and a half hours, has been offered regularly since April 2021. So far, a total of 57 sessions have been held and nearly 300 participants from virtually all of CERN’s departments have taken part. Sign up now!

People outside CERN also benefit from the course. Since April 2024, it has also been available in the Republic and Canton of Geneva as part of a knowledge transfer contract with CERN, which was set up through the Industry, Procurement and Knowledge Transfer (IPT) Department. Nineteen sessions have already been held attracting around 200 participants from many of the cantonal administration services, in particular the state chancellery and the departments responsible for economy and employment, health and mobility, institutions and digital affairs, finance and public education.

This collaboration, which is the product of a joint effort by the EN, HR and IPT Departments, is a concrete example of how the expertise and knowledge developed at CERN can be shared with society. By making certain learning opportunities available outside the Organization, CERN is contributing to the development of skills and supporting innovation in the public sector.

Take advantage of the broad range of educational opportunities on offer at CERN. Discover all of CERN’s training programmes on the Learning and Development web page.