NOVOSIBIRSK, March 19. /TASS/. The decision by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to suspend cooperation with Russian researchers will retard scientific progress, Pavel Logachev, director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS.

Earlier, CERN announced that it would suspend cooperation with some 500 employees linked to Russia in November 2024.

"You see, the way the global economy is slowing down amid confrontation and sanctions, science is also slowing down," Logachev pointed out.

According to him, the normal development of science requires normal relations between countries, which is something that the foreign colleagues of Russian researchers at CERN understand well.

Logachev emphasized that the suspension of cooperation was no tragedy for Russian researchers. "We have a lot to do in Russia at the moment; there are many important and interesting missions. We have our mega-science projects and numerous crucial missions that are as interesting as before," he added.

In March 2022, CERN suspended Russia’s observer status, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine. In June 2022, the CERN Council decided not to extend a cooperation agreement with Russia and Belarus beyond 2024.

Researchers from the Institute of Nuclear Physics are among the initiators of the Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment (AWAKE) as part of the CERN project. Russian scientists discovered a phenomenon destroying plasma waves that accelerate charged particles in wakefield accelerators.