UK firm Arcade has won contracts worth £1m at CERN, home of the Higgs boson discovery, to upgrade ventilation systems essential in the day-to-day running of the experiment.
The latest of these contracts starts this month during the long shutdown taking place at CERN for important upgrade work.

Arcade is a Cambridgeshire based family business which The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) first introduced to CERN at a 'meet the buyer' event in 2011 run to match UK industry with opportunities at science facilities. CERN's head of the heating and ventilation group wanted to meet with UK companies ahead of the shutdown when major upgrades of the systems would take place.

As a result of this introduction, Arcade was invited to tender for several projects. It has been steadily winning contracts ever since. Working with CERN has enabled Arcade to increase its workforce and now that its engineers are trained to work in radiation environments, they have the skills to work in a range of scientific environments.

So far the company has completed the heating and ventilation systems for part of the CMS experiment (one of two experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson last year) and is due to start work on a variety of projects across the CERN site soon, such as improvements to the cooling systems for a server room and the installation of redundant pumps and ventilation for parts of the LHC.

STFC is holding an Industry Business Breakfast meeting to introduce UK companies to the business opportunities at STFC funded international science facilities. It takes place on 26 September from 08.30 -11.00am at the Sussex Innovation Centre in Brighton. The event is free to attend and aimed at companies who are less familiar with the STFC tender opportunities service. For more information visit the STFC website at http://www.stfc.ac.uk/2832.aspx