CERN Alumni Review of 2022
According to the Oxford English Dictionnary (and 93% of the 340,000 people who participated in the public vote) the word of 2022 was "Goblin Mode", defined as "a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations". Looking back on 2022, this is certainly not the behaviour we witnessed within the CERN Alumni Network in what was a busy and eventful 2022. By the end of year shutdown, we had reached over 8,500 members worldwide, many of whom have participated in our multiple activities, such as sharing their story, featuring in a spotlight article, answering our "10 questions" series, sharing their memories of the announcement of the Higgs and previous runs of the LHC. CERN Alumni also participated in our traditional advent calendar campaign, sharing good wishes from multiple locations across the globe. Members of the community also took part in our "Moving out of Academia to" events, either sharing their experience moving away from CERN to a different sector as panellists, or as audience members to discover valuable tips and advice needed when considering a trajectory towards a different industry. We also doubled the number of Virtual Company Showrooms organised in 2022, 14 in total, compared with seven in 2021. The News from the Lab events in 2022 fascinating fields ranging from Radiation-Hard Robotics and Quantum Machine Learning in High Energy Physics, to the first in a series featuring CERN Knowledge Transfer, which will continue into 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to the annual CERN Relay Race in 2020 and 2021, but this year the 50th edition went ahead and for the first time ever, included seven teams of CERN alumni, participating in a virtual CERN relay race as well as a CERN Alumnus who participated in the first ever CERN relay race, 50 editions ago! In June 2022, CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) announced CERN as one of its winners of a Gold Circle of Excellence award for the CERN Alumni Second Collisions virtual reunion event in 2021. CERN Alumni regional groups were launched in the San Francisco Bay area, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates, now seeing CERN Alumni Regional groups spanning across three continents!
2022 drew to a close with the first in-person CERN Alumni Advisory Board meeting (CAAB) since the pandemic, which saw the end of several CAAB members' mandates. Valuable input given by the CAAB during the meeting will contribute to shaping our upcoming activities and form our roadmap which will underpin our work for the coming years, so stay tuned to find out more and meet those CERN Alumni who will be joining the CAAB from 1 Jan 2023. But before embarking on a new year, my colleagues and I from the Office for Alumni Relations, would like to thank all of you for your wonderful contributions to developing a strong and vibrant CERN Alumni Network and we look forward to providing you with more opportunites to benefit from everything the CERN Alumni programme has to offer.