Summer is a special season, as it provides the chance to see many of the projects that we receive donations for during the year become a reality. 

Among these, we are especially pleased to have welcomed 60 young people to CERN from non-Member States as part of the 2025 Summer Student Programme. This programme gives students studying STEM subjects the chance to work alongside different teams at CERN for 8 to 12 weeks. We caught up with a few of this year’s students – Annabel, Huda and Jane – to hear about their experiences this year. Their stories are definitely worth checking out!

And it’s not just students who have been visiting CERN for learning opportunities. Summer means the start of the CERN National Teacher Programmes, which are week-long professional development courses for physics teachers from across the world, delivered in their native languages. Participants get a full overview of CERN and are fully immersed in its activities – from lectures on particle accelerators and detectors to guided visits of many of the sites’ most captivating visit points. This is a unique opportunity to gain insight into CERN, which feeds back into the classrooms they teach in.

Off-site, the CERN Festival Programme made its way around Europe, travelling to Spain, Denmark and the Czech Republic. The Discovery Lab visited Rototom Festival, while the Science Pavilion went to Smukfest Festival and the Big Bang Stage to Colors of Ostrava and Sonoroma Ribera festivals. This year the programme managed to bring science to around 5,000 people per festival – reaching new audiences and hopefully inspiring a young mind or two to engage more with science.

It’s wonderful to be able to reflect on these moments, which are made possible thanks to enthusiastic participants, dedicated project leaders and our generous supporters.  

We are already looking ahead to next summer, and of course, to the projects we have around the corner. External donations bring these projects to life. If you would like to contribute to bringing CERN’s curiosity, creativity and innovation to society, then consider donating to the CERN & Society Foundation here.