Human and social capital accumulation within research infrastructures: The case of CERN

The contribution to human and social capital accumulation is one of the most important socio-economic benefits of public investment in Research Infrastructures. Sure enough, these large scientific enterprises are exceptional incubators of human and social capital, especially for early-career researchers who have the opportunity to gain new skills and expand their network of contacts in highly prestigious and challenging workplaces. This paper explores the contribution of spending a period of study and/or work at the Large Hadron Collider of CERN to the expected future lifelong salary of early-career researchers. Previous studies are here extended by using three sources of data: primary data collected through a survey to CERN Alumni, a survey to team leaders who supervised early-career researchers at CERN, and secondary data salary information. Findings show that an experience-based learning process at CERN is instrumental in developing skills that are needed by the economy and reveal an expected salary premium between 5% and 11%. Such human capital effect seems more important than a pure networking and reputational effect.