CERN Director-General, Fabiola Gianotti (left), and His Excellency Mr Patrick Wittmann, Ambassador of Canada to Switzerland and Liechtenstein (right), exchanging signed copies of the joint Statement of Intent between CERN and Canada. (Image: CERN) CERN has signed a joint Statement of Intent with Canada concerning future planning for large research infrastructure facilities, and novel and advanced techniques and tools. The Statement was signed by CERN’s Director-General, Fabiola Gianotti, and Canada’s Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Philip Jennings. The Statement details how CERN and Canada intend to strengthen their collaboration in the planning of future projects, including the ongoing Future Circular Collider (FCC) studies, and to expand cooperation on innovative technologies, with a particular focus on the three technology pillars of the field – accelerators, detectors and computing. With a special note about how fundamental research at major facilities and open science drive technological development and innovation in many domains of society, the Statement acknowledges Canada’s strong contributions to the forthcoming High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). It also establishes that, should the CERN Member States determine that the FCC is likely to be CERN’s next world-leading research facility following the HL-LHC, Canada intends to collaborate on its construction and physics exploitation, subject to appropriate domestic approvals. The Statement builds on the decades-long participation of Canadian institutions and scientists in the scientific programme at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and at other CERN experiments and facilities, acknowledging the extensive collaboration of Canada and CERN in high-energy particle physics, technology development, innovation, training and education.