CERN openlab summer student programme

What are you doing next summer?

Each summer, CERN openlab runs a nine-week programme for bachelor’s and master’s students specialising in subjects related to computer science. These students work on cutting-edge projects with our collaborators, gaining hands-on experience with the latest computing technologies.

CERN is the birthplace of the World Wide Web. The laboratory hosts ground-breaking experiments and is at the heart of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG). It is an environment like no other, where dizzying computing challenges abound!

By joining the CERN openlab summer student programme, you will work with some of the latest hardware and software technologies and see how advanced computing tools are used in high-energy physics. Students will also participate in a series of lectures prepared for them by computing experts at CERN, in addition to the main lecture series for CERN summer students. Visits to the accelerators and experimental areas are also included in the programme.

Who can apply?

Are you a B.Sc. or M.Sc. student in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or physics? Do you have a strong computing profile? Will you have completed at least three years of full-time studies at university level by next June? Would you be interested in working on an advanced computing project for nine weeks during the period June-August? If the answer to these questions is yes, you should apply to the CERN openlab summer student programme!

How and when to apply?

The call for applications for the 2026 CERN openlab summer student programme is now closed and will open soon. Students will get a reply to their application by late March/early April 2026. Invitation letters, for visa purposes (if needed), will be sent around May, however you can also use the acceptance letter to start your visa procedure.

The following documents should be included in the application:

  • CV
  • Recommendation letter(s) by university supervisor(s)
  • Motivation letter with an indication of the preferred area of work (highly recommended, not mandatory)
  • Academic transcripts for the current year

All required documents must be submitted with your application. Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered.

Replies to applicants will be sent out by late March/early April 2026.

More information

Students participating in the programme work on projects related to specific computing topics, each with a dedicated CERN supervisor. At the end of their nine weeks working with CERN, students produce a report and present their work in a short public presentation. Reports on previous summer-student projects can be found on Zenodo.

A stipend is provided to cover students’ living costs while staying at CERN. Full details on this — and all eligibility criteria — can be found on the CERN careers website and the summer student programme website.

Find more on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the CERN openlab summer student programme. 

Short video with 2025 CERN openlab summer student programme supervisors discussing the importance of the programme.

Summer students projects

Create a collection of albums in the CERN Document Server from digitized historical photos of particle tracks.
Flash Storage potential in Large-Scale Physics Workflows.
Energy Analysis for Distributed Machine Learning on HPC with itwinai.
Bridging authentication for services in the Virtual Research Environment.
Next Generation Triggers for CMS: Continual Learning for Decision Trees.
CERN Digital Twin: CAD-to-USD with Dynamic LOD Rendering.
Scalability Analysis of interTwin AI Workflows and Their Offloading to HPC.
AI-Enhanced Operator Assistance for UNICOS Applications.
Unified TLS Certificate Automation Using Let’s Encrypt.
Enhancing the Level-0 Muon Trigger System for the High-Luminosity LHC.
Two projects: 1) A 3D digital twin of the CERN accelerator complex for intervention simulation using NVIDIA Omniverse;
2) Exploring Oracle Cloud for Disaster Recovery.
Two projects: 1) Evaluation of HPC Storage Systems for HEP Analyses Omniverse;
2) Virtual LHC: Simulating CERN’s Particle Accelerator in NVIDIA Omniverse.
Two projects: 1) Oracle Configuration Discrepancies Check;
2) Enhanced AI LLM-based Paper Review for CMS.
Two projects: 1) Anomaly Detection in Grid Compute Nodes: A Machine Learning Approach Leveraging HEP Benchmark Suite;
2) Enhancing the Testing of CERN’s Linux Software Building Service and Improving Monitoring.
Two projects: 1) AGenerative Neural Network Models for Fast Particle Shower Simulation in Calorimeters for Geant4;
2) Bringing Object Storage to Kubernetes: A Deep Dive into COSI and Its Integration at CERN.

Day in the life of a CERN openlab summer student

Day in the life of a CERN openlab summer student with Najla Sadek.
Day in the life of a CERN openlab summer student outside of work with Bernard Tam, Amélie Leconte, and Tomáš Ondrejka.
Day on the life of a CERN openlab summer student with Raisa Rahman Richi.