On 10 June, CERN was honoured to receive Sergio Mattarella, the President of the Republic of Italy. The President and his official delegation were greeted at LHC Point 1 by CERN Director-General, Fabiola Gianotti, the Director for Accelerators and Technology, Frédérick Bordry, the Director for Finance and Human Resources, Martin Steinacher, the Director for International Relations, Charlotte Warakaulle, the Head of Member State Relations, Pippa Wells, the Engineering Department Head, Roberto Losito, and by the Italian spokespersons of international collaborations at CERN.

The Director-General was also flanked by the Nobel Prize-winner and former Director-General, Carlo Rubbia, as well as by eminent Italian physicists Ugo Amaldi, Antonino Zichichi and Umberto Dosselli.

The President of the Republic of Italy visited the LHC tunnel, the ATLAS experiment cavern, and the Universe of Particles exhibition, and also met representatives of the Italian community at CERN.

Italy is one of CERN’s original founding States and its institutes and scientists have contributed to all the Laboratory’s scientific exploits down the years. Italian industry was responsible for building many parts of the LHC, including a number of its superconducting magnets, and made important contributions especially in the fields of civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, vacuum technology and cryogenics. CERN currently has more than 1500 users from Italian institutes and more than 500 Italian members of the personnel.