Irish companies awarded CERN contracts
Totel CERN procurement is about €400 million per year. Only member state are entitled to bid. Where specialist capacity is not present non-member states may bid and the following Irish companies (or subsidaries of multinationals) have been awarded contracts. Multinationals, headquartered in Ireland, cannot, by rights, supply CERN.
However, surveys of companies that have worked with CERN show that, over and above the monetary value of a contract, much greater returns comes from knowledge transfer, the challenge of working at the cutting-edge, and the reputational impact.
At the Oireachtas Joint Committee of Business, Science and Innovation debate, Ed Hendrick from Irish start-up Sonru spoke about how a contract with CERN helped him grow his company from 10 to 60 people. In 2020 they merged with American multinational 'Modern Hire'.
Impact and Case Studies - Industry impact in Member States