Date and place
The 14th Thematic CERN School of Computing will be held in Abingdon, UK, between the 6-12 April 2025.
Applications and selection
We are committed to achieving an inclusive and stimulating environment at our schools, and we encourage all qualified persons to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of nationality, gender, age, ethnic origin, individual differences of belief, sexual orientation, or disability.
The school is aimed at postgraduate (i.e. minimum of Bachelor degree or equivalent) students, engineers and scientists with a few years' experience in computing, in information security, or in related fields. We welcome applications from all countries and nationalities.
Please make sure that you know if your university or employer is prepared to finance your school and travel should you be selected, or if you are funding the participation yourself.
Students who have attended any previous CERN Schools of Computing, and who are interested in deepening their knowledge on the theme of this Thematic CSC, are also welcome to apply.
The programme of this school is targeted at people working in academia and research institutes, who as part of their job need to ensure security and resilience of computing resources they manage, and want to be prepared to detect and handle possible security incidents:
- service managers and service providers of distributed scientific computing infrastructures, both from IT departments and from experiments,
- people in charge of deploying cloud services used by scientists,
- security professionals, who would like to expand their knowledge in a more holistic fashion.
People who wish to attend this school are expected to be familiar with (should have some experience with):
- Unix-based systems (from the user and admin point of view)
- Programming/scripting (e.g. Python, bash) and related tools (e.g. git)
- Networking (OSI model, main network protocols such as DNS, IPv4/IPv6, TCP/UDP, HTTP, SSH, mail etc.)
- Applied cryptography (e.g. symmetric vs. asymmetric encryption, hash functions, SSL/TLS, digital certificates and signatures etc.)
To apply, please fill in the application form and provide the requested information.
In order to login, you may use a CERN account, an EduGAIN-enabled account, or a public service account (GitHub, Google, Facebook or LinkedIn account). Alternatively, you can create a CERN lightweight account, and then login with your email ("Guess access"). You will also need to create an Indico account during the application process, if you do not already have one.
Applicants should ensure that they have:
- completed the application form online, and
- uploaded a signed formal letter of reference (on formal headed paper from the applicant's institute/organization) from their professor or supervisor.
- If your professor or supervisor does not wish to provide you with a letter directly, s/he can email us your letter of reference instead. This should be sent directly to Computing.School@cern.ch, with the subject: Reference Letter tCSC security 2025: [name of applicant]
The letter of reference needs to be received by the school (whether uploaded or emailed) by January 31, 2025, at the latest.
If no letter is included, the application will be considered void and discarded from the selection process. It is your responsibility to ensure we receive it.
The number of participants is limited to 30.
Participant selection is done by members of the CSC Team+ Programme Committee, and is based on the profile and the motivation of the applicants. The goal is to select participants who have enough education and work experience to profit fully from the school, and for whom the academic programme of the school is relevant to their work or research.
Applicants will be informed of the selection decision by 14 February, 2025.
Selected applicants will receive an Invitation Letter from the school. Payment of the registration fee will confirm your place, at which point you will be considered a participant Payments must have arrived no later than 6th of September.
If you have received an invitation to attend the school, you will be required to pay the school's registration fee. The deadline for payment of the fee is:
7 March 2025
If you have been offered a place at the school and we have not received your fee by this date, you risk losing your place at the school and it being offered to another applicant.If you know that you are not able to participate, please tell us ASAP
The total fee of the School is 750 CHF per participant for accommodation in a twin room. Single room fee will be 900 CHF.
The fee covers:
- Tuition and handouts.
- Accommodation in a twin room, from Sunday 6 April until Saturday 12 April at the Cosener's guesthouse.
- All meals including breakfast, lunches and coffee breaks, starting from Sunday 6 April dinner until Saturnday 12 April breakfast.
- All organized social activities (special dinners, excursion etc.).
The fee does NOT cover:
- Travel expenses from the participants' home location or working place to the Cosener's house or to the hotel where you will be accommodated.
- The cost of a travel visa where required.
- Any alcoholic beverages during dinners or social outings.
- Any extra cost incurred during the stay (including private excursions, private expenses in the hotel and on the campus, private transport costs, private meals etc.) will not be covered by the School organization.
- Any cost incurred by a participant not following the official excursion or social programme (e.g. meal cost of a participant not attending an excursion which includes a meal) will not be covered by the School organization.
- Any other expenses not explicitly mentioned as included in the fee.
The School will neither arrange accommodation nor will cover any cost associated with an extended stay of students in the U.K. Participants arriving before Sunday 6 April morning/midday, or leaving after Saturday 12 April morning must organize their extended stay themselves.
The CERN School of Computing is offering a limited number of grants for the participation to its courses. These grants are awarded to students that would normally not be able to participate in the schools. The students should be studying or have an employment related to the topic of the school.
The grant will cover the full or half inscription fee for the school, which includes the stay at the school, all meals, the tuition, and scheduled social activities.
It does not cover the travel expenses and eventual visa cost, which will remain at the expense of the student. The students must have a health and accident cover that includes adequate protection for the country in which the school takes place.
Applicants are expected to provide a curriculum vitae and a recommendation letter to support their application and show how they are related to the field. They should have a sufficient level of English to be able to follow the course.
The applications will be analysed and ranked according to their relevance:
- It primarily important that the content of the CSC school is of direct use for the present or immediate professional future of the applicant.
- The pre-education needs to be sufficient in order to follow the course.
The number of grants is not guaranteed and can change according to the circumstances of the school and the number of applicants.
Important information: If you apply for a funding grant, you will not be able to change this to a standard application in case of a negative reply for a grant.
There are four ways to pay:
- TID - for participants located at CERN and/or with CERN internal transfer capabilities;
- Bank transfer - for participants external to CERN and/or with no CERN internal transfer capabilities;
- Credit card directly from the indico page for accepted registrations Please note the cost of transactions by credit card (2.5% of the transaction for payments by Visa or Mastercard)
- Via invoice, you have to ask for it BEFORE paying.
TID and bank transfer details will be provided in the invitation.
Insurance
Participants must have health and accident cover that includes adequate protection (including emergency medical treatment, hospitalisation and repatriation in case of illness or accident), and against disability or death resulting from illnesses and accidents, for the country in which the School takes place.
Participants shall hold CERN free and harmless from any cost or expense resulting from the situation where adequate insurance cover is not in place.
Travel
Details on how to travel to Abongdon will be given out in due time.
Participants should arrive at the Cosener's house in the afternoon of April 6th.
Participants are responsible for organising their own travel to and from the School location. The School does not organize travel tickets for participants. The travel cost to and from the school is not included in the school fee. Important: do not book your travel before you get a confirmation from us that the School will indeed take place in person.
Participants are responsible for obtaining a valid visa to enter the country of the School location when this is required. The cost of a visa is not included in the school fee.
Accommodation and Meals
Participants will be housed in the Cosener's guesthouse. Participants will be hosted in shared twin rooms, with private bathrooms. The room allocation is done by the school organisers.
Accommodation from April 6th until April 12th is included in the School fee.
All meals are included in the School fee. The first meal will be the dinner on Sunday April 6th October, and the last meal will be breakfast on Saturday 12 October.
We will ask you in your acceptance form about any specific dietary requirements you may have, and do our best to accommodate accordingly, given the local catering options available. However we cannot make any guarantees.
Sustainability
Organizing the school in an environmentally responsible way is one of our goals.
During the school, we will:
- Serve meals and drinks with washable plates, glasses and utensils; or with recycled and/or biodegradable ones
- Have vegetarian and vegan dishes available
- Limit the amount of printed materials (and in particular, only provide the printed version of the school booklet to those who want to have one)
- Separate and recycle waste
Please help us:
- Consider travelling to the school by train or bus, or any other less polluting means of transport, if possible
- Bring your own reusable water bottle or cup
