CERN
http://www.cern.ch/

The 12 founding member states of CERN in 1954 a[›] (map borders from 1989)

54 years after its foundation, membership to CERN increased to 20 states, 18 of which are also EU members as of 2008
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire), known as CERN (see Naming), pronounced /ˈsɝːn/ (IPA: [sɛʀn] in French), is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border, established in 1954.[1] The organization has twenty European member states, and is currently the workplace of approximately 2600 full-time employees, as well as some 7931 scientists and engineers (representing 500 universities and 80 nationalities).
CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. Numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN by international collaborations to make use of them. The main site at Meyrin also has a large computer centre containing very powerful data processing facilities primarily for experimental data analysis, and because of the need to make them available to researchers elsewhere, has historically been (and continues to be) a major wide area networking hub.
As an international facility, the CERN sites are officially under neither Swiss nor French jurisdiction. Member states' contributions to CERN for the year 2008 totalled CHF 1 billion (approximately €664 million, US$ 1 billion).[2]

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