History
Nikhef was founded in 1975 to consolidate and facilitate Dutch efforts in the field of subatomic physics.
The National Institute for Subatomic Physics Nikhef has a long history. The name derives from the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics. Today, Nikhef is known as the National Institute for Subatomic Physics.
Through an agreement between FOM, the City of Amsterdam, and Philips, the “Institute for Nuclear Physics Research” (IKO) was established in 1946. For thirty years, research in the fields of nuclear physics and radiochemistry was conducted at this laboratory using a cyclotron and a linear electron accelerator.
Research in the field of elementary particles (including high-energy physics) was conducted at the Zeeman Laboratory of the University of Amsterdam. Starting in 1957, experiments were carried out using the accelerators at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, founded in 1954), while the analyses were performed in Amsterdam and Nijmegen.
Research in the related fields of nuclear physics and high-energy physics was consolidated into a new research institute in the mid-1970s. On June 17, 1975, after ten years of preparation, the agreement was signed to establish the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High-Energy Physics (NIKHEF) between the FOM Foundation, the IKO Foundation, the University of Amsterdam, and the Catholic University of Nijmegen.
In 2025, the fiftieth anniversary was celebrated extensively with both its own staff and national and international partners and associates. Throughout its history, Nikhef has been regularly involved in major scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson (2012), gravitational waves (2016), and extremely high-energy neutrinos (2025).
Since its founding, an increasing number of research groups from other universities have joined the collaboration. Nikhef is now an NWO institute with six university partners: the University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen, Utrecht University, the University of Groningen, and Maastricht University.