Faculty Professor-emeritus· University of Amsterdam and Nikhef
Experimental particle physicist. A working life at the high-energy frontier — from deep-inelastic scattering to the Higgs discovery — and, still, the shaping of European science strategy and the defence of scientific integrity.
Born in Maasniel in 1950, Jos Engelen studied physics at Nijmegen and took his PhD in experimental high-energy physics there in 1979. After six years at CERN as a fellow and staff member, he joined Nikhef in 1985 and became full professor at the University of Amsterdam in 1987.
His experimental work spans the X42, NA14, ZEUS and ANTARES collaborations, and he chaired CERN's LHC Committee in the years before the collider came online. He went on to lead Nikhef, to serve as CERN's Chief Scientific Officer and Deputy Director-General, and to chair the governing board of NWO. Author of some 200 scientific publications and notes.
Essays on quarks, relativity, the Zeeman effect, the electron and the cloud chamber.
Enter chapter →Notes and advocacy on making the scientific literature freely available. Not very modest, but accurate: I was an early advocate of Open Access (quality controlled) scientific publishing, both in my capacity as CERN director and as chair of NWO.
Enter chapter →The prize, its laureates and the addresses given at the annual award ceremony.
Enter chapter →From Huygens' cycloidal pendulum to a 1927 Leiden photograph with Dirac and Oppenheimer.
Enter chapter →Work in progress: artikel voor NTvN over status experimenteel onderzoek naar Majorana-neutrino's.
The 2026 update of the European Strategy is reaching its decisive phase. A running commentary on the process, the Future Circular Collider, and what a coherent vision for the field should look like.
The claim (by one author, spread over tens of peer reviewed publications) is that a new aggregatipn state of hydrogen with a density of 100 kg/cm3 has been observed. No independent confirmation of this revolutionary 'discovery' was successful.
Since 2022, with Klavs Hansen, a sustained critique of published claims about ultra-dense hydrogen for energy production — including a company's misleading assertion of a Royal Swedish Academy endorsement, which does not exist.
Brief aan de KNAW-president (sept. 2025). Lees de brief →
Bijdrage met Walter Hoogland over Europa. Geweigerd door NRC helaas. Lees de brief →
Het Nikhef-magazine, met aandacht voor het 70-jarig bestaan van CERN.
Nieuwe editie →