BEFORE
COMING TO CERN
1-
Make sure
you have a passport that will be valid a minimum of 3 months after the
beginning of the trip. Some airlines will not let you fly if your passport will
expire in less than 3 months.
2-
Check if
you need to get visas for
3-
To
facilitate the procedure to get the Swiss visa you need to request an
invitation letter (long term or short term depending on the length of planned
stay) from the US-CMS Project Office at CERN (yazgan@cern.ch).
The invitation letter will be signed by the CERN authorities and the original
will be mailed to the requestor via express mail. A copy is faxed to the
relevant Swiss consulate.
4-
To get a
short term French visa you need to request a Protocole d’accueil
from the US-CMS Project Office at CERN (yazgan@cern.ch).
After being signed by the CERN and French authorities the letter will be sent
to the requestor via express mail and be faxed to the relevant French
consulate. The long term visa requires a Note
Verbale that is sent directly to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs through the CERN Relations with Host States Service. The
ministry then sends it to the relevant consulate. Please keep in mind that this
process takes approximately 4-6 weeks, so make sure you will have enough time
to get the visa.
5-
Make sure
you will be covered by a health and disability insurance as it is required both
for the visa and the CERN registration procedures.
6-
Make
appointments with the consulates. You will need to apply at the consulate
responsible for your current dwelling place. For Swiss visas and the short term
French visa you will need to apply with the letter provided by the US-CMS
Project Office at CERN. Make sure you allow 4-6 weeks for the long term French
visa before you go to the consulate.
7-
Find out
other documentation required by the consulates before you go and make sure you
have all necessary documents.
8-
Book
airline tickets. Some consulates may
require a copy of the flight itinerary. Please keep in mind that a
9-
Arrange
accommodation and rental cars. The US-CMS Project Office at CERN can help you
with these arrangements.
10- Consult the CERN
Users' Office Guide for Newcomers webpage for additional information.
GETTING
REGISTERED AT CERN |
1.
The first
thing to do is fill out the form found here
and take it to the CERN
Users' Office to get your CERN registration document. Please take note of the things they require
for registration - notably, your passport, passport photos and a copy of your
current contract with your institute stating dates of employment as well as
health and disability insurance information.
For Fermilab employees, Tami Kramer can sign
as deputy team leader and produce a letter of employment. For all other institutes, the CERN
Registration form has to be signed by the team leader of the institute.
2.
Once
registered, your CERN document gives you access to the CERN site. You should also obtain an Access Card which
grants entry to access controlled areas like
experimental areas and test beams. This
card is available in Building 55, on the first floor. You will need to take the
Basic
Safety course on the ground floor of the same building. After the course,
you must validate your card in the machine.
For access to the underground area at the CMS site, you will need Level 4
training.
3.
If you plan to work in areas exposed to
radiation, you'll need a medical certificate signed by a qualified medical
service in order to get a film
badge- this form is also available on the page mentioned above under FAQ -
RP course. The film badge office is in
Building 24 E-011 (internal phone number 72155).
4.
If you plan to be working long term on CMS,
you should also register with the CMS Secretariat in
Building 40 5-B08.
5.
In order
to use your laptop at CERN, the MAC addresses of all of the network interfaces
you plan to use (wireless and hard-wired) must be registered with the CERN Network service. You can do this yourself, if you have a NICE
account (an account on the MS Windows infrastructure at CERN). If you do not have a NICE account, the
network form you fill out must be sent to a CERN Staff member for
approval. Note that most US CMS people
have USER (visitor) status and not CERN Staff status, so they cannot approve
your form. However, if the person with
user status has a NICE account, they can fill out the form for you and register
your laptop.
6.
Once you
are registered with the User's Office (it may take a day to get into the CERN
HR database), you can apply for computer accounts. Fill out the form available here and take it to
one of the computer group administrators for CMS - Martti
Pimia (Building 40 3-A20) or Werner Jank (Building 40 3-A24).
The Computer Group Code for CMS is ZH.
NICE is the MS Windows infrastructure at CERN, LXPLUS is Linux/AFS, AIS
is for Administrative services like CERN's Electronic Document Handling system
(EDH). For EDH you will be given a login
password and an authorization password which allows you to authorize
documents.
7.
You will
be crossing borders everyday if you are commuting between CERN cites and/or you
live in