Cyclotron Info
On this page

Accelerator Schools & Training Programs

Much specialized accelerator training happens through lab-run schools, internships, and open course archives rather than through widely available standalone degree programs: short intensive schools run by the laboratories and their consortia, paid internships inside the laboratories themselves, and course archives published openly enough that a determined reader can follow the same curriculum from home. This page catalogs those routes — the 28 entries below were each verified against live pages in August 2026 — from degree-credit schools to archives that ask for nothing but time.

Self-studiers should start with the free archives below and the sequenced reading order on the self-study shelf; job-seekers with Accelerator Careers; degree-choosers with University Accelerator Programs. Facility and program acronyms are in the glossary.

Application deadlines are deliberately absent. Programs move their dates every year, and a stale deadline on a reference page can cost a student an application; each entry instead carries a labeled “Typical timing” line with the seasonal pattern its program has followed, and links the program’s own pages, where the current dates live.

Accelerator schools

Most of this section is short intensive schools: a semester of material compressed into one to five weeks, taught by working accelerator physicists to graduate students and laboratory staff, several with real university credit. It also carries two things the field files under the same heading — one formal graduate degree route (SOKENDAI), and two UK institute lecture programs whose curricula are published free online for anyone to follow.

  • US Particle Accelerator School (USPAS)

    The national accelerator school of the United States, run by a Fermilab-based office on behalf of a consortium of DOE laboratories and universities. Sessions run twice a year, winter and summer, each a two-week intensive in which one course covers roughly a one-semester university syllabus: daily lectures, homework, and exams, held at a hotel or conference venue. Each session is sponsored by a rotating host research university that grants real undergraduate or graduate credit for the course; attendees not taking credit may audit. Fees are charged per session for registration and accommodation, with scholarship support for enrolled students and recent postdocs, including merit scholarships that ask for a cover letter, CV, and one recommendation letter. Prerequisites run from undergraduate electromagnetism for the fundamentals course to graduate level for the advanced ones.

    Open archive: the USPAS materials table publishes lecture notes and problem sets from decades of past sessions (see the self-study section below).

    For graduate students primarily, alongside advanced undergraduates, postdocs, and working engineers and operators. Typical timing: two sessions per year; applications and scholarship requests typically close in autumn for the winter session and in early spring for the summer one. Verified August 2026.

  • CERN Accelerator School (CAS)

    CERN’s travelling accelerator school, running since 1983: general and advanced courses on a rotating cycle — see the CAS calendar for the current slate — plus topical courses on subjects such as RF, vacuum, and medical accelerators, each one to two weeks of lectures and tutorials hosted in a different member state. Attendance is open to physicists, engineers, technicians, and students worldwide; fees cover board and lodging at the venue, and student grants exist. CAS is professional training rather than credit-bearing coursework, though some universities recognize it.

    Open archive: the previous-schools index links published proceedings back to 1983 (see the self-study section below).

    For graduate students, early-career researchers, and working professionals; the introductory course explicitly serves people new to the field. Typical timing: per-school registration, typically opening several months ahead and closing a few months before the school begins. Verified August 2026.

  • JUAS — Joint Universities Accelerator School

    A graduate-school term rather than a short course: two consecutive five-week courses each January to March at ESI Archamps near Geneva, run in partnership with CERN and a consortium of European universities. Course 1 covers the science of particle accelerators and Course 2 the technology and applications; each is roughly 100 hours of lectures plus tutorials, computer labs, and group work, taken singly or together. Written examinations lead to ECTS credit recognized by the partner home universities. The eligibility floor is bachelor-level physics: special relativity, electromagnetism, and standard mathematics. Fees and accommodation are detailed on the site.

    For master’s and doctoral students and early-career professionals. Typical timing: annual January start; applications typically close in the preceding autumn. Verified August 2026.

  • OCPA International Accelerator School

    The accelerator school of the International Organization of Chinese Physicists and Astronomers, held roughly every two years since 1998 at rotating Asian venues; the twelfth school (2025) was jointly organized by the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute and Thailand’s Synchrotron Light Research Institute and ran about ten days at Khao Yai, Thailand. The format compresses a one-semester curriculum into the session, with homework and a final examination, and each school admits 60–80 competitively selected students. Accommodation fees are charged; support arrangements vary by school.

    For graduate students and early-career researchers, centered on the Asia-Pacific region though not restricted to it. Typical timing: roughly biennial; for a mid-summer school, applications typically close in early summer. Verified August 2026.

  • SOKENDAI Accelerator Science Program (KEK, Japan)

    Japan’s graduate program in accelerator science, run by The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, with research conducted at KEK’s accelerators — SuperKEKB and the Photon Factory — and at J-PARC, the Tokai facility that KEK operates jointly with JAEA. It is a graduate degree program, included here as the formal degree route, with English-language pages and international admissions through the SOKENDAI portal. KEK’s short-format offering for visiting students is the summer program under international placements below.

    For degree-seeking graduate students, including international applicants. Typical timing: standard Japanese graduate-admissions cycles through the SOKENDAI portal — check the program page. Verified August 2026.

  • Cockcroft Institute postgraduate lectures (UK)

    The UK’s accelerator-science institute (Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, and Strathclyde universities with Daresbury Laboratory) runs a two-year postgraduate lecture program, compulsory for its own doctoral students and offered free to the public online: lectures are webcast live and archived with slides and video. Introductory modules run each autumn semester; advanced modules on RF systems, beam dynamics, magnets, and novel accelerators follow in spring. External viewers get no credential — the institute asks only for an email notification — and what they get in exchange is a substantial open lecture archive at no cost.

    Open archive: recordings and slides via STFC Indico.

    For its doctoral students formally; open online to anyone. Typical timing: no application for online access; modules follow the UK academic year, starting each autumn. Verified August 2026.

  • John Adams Institute graduate lectures (UK)

    The John Adams Institute’s graduate course in accelerator science, taught across Oxford, Royal Holloway, and Imperial College: Michaelmas term is twenty-four one-hour lectures plus tutorials on fundamentals (transverse and longitudinal dynamics, RF, diagnostics, synchrotron radiation, plasma acceleration), and Hilary term covers advanced topics with a capstone design project. The course exists for the institute’s own doctoral students, and the lecture slides and materials are posted publicly on CERN Indico pages for each academic year — a second free graduate lecture archive alongside Cockcroft’s.

    For its doctoral students formally; materials open to self-studiers. Typical timing: no application for the materials; formal enrolment follows the member universities’ doctoral admissions. Verified August 2026.

US laboratory internships and pipeline programs

The Department of Energy’s internships are paid placements at national laboratories, including the ones that run the country’s accelerators. The programs span every research area a lab hosts, so an accelerator-relevant placement is something to ask for in the application, not something the program guarantees. Two DOE-wide programs anchor the category; the laboratory hubs below carry the lab-specific programs. Because lab-specific program names and pages change often, this page links each laboratory’s durable internship hub rather than individual program names.

  • DOE SULI — Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships

    The Department of Energy’s flagship undergraduate internship: paid research placements at roughly seventeen national laboratories, including Argonne, Brookhaven, Berkeley, Oak Ridge, SLAC, and Fermilab, as either a ten-week summer term or a semester-long fall or spring term, three terms per year. Open to undergraduates and recent graduates in STEM, with a stipend. For accelerator careers this is a common entry route: several host labs are accelerator laboratories, and project matching happens at the lab level.

    For undergraduates and recent graduates. Typical timing: three cycles per year, each closing roughly one semester before its term starts. Verified August 2026.

  • DOE CCI — Community College Internships

    The community-college counterpart to SULI: paid ten-week technical internships at the same DOE laboratories, explicitly for students enrolled at community colleges, oriented toward technologies and instrumentation rather than research as such. CCI is especially relevant for technician-track readers: DOE laboratories use it to place community-college students in technical roles — the tier documented on Accelerator Careers.

    For community-college students. Typical timing: cycles mirror SULI’s — multiple terms per year, applications closing roughly a semester ahead. Verified August 2026.

  • Fermilab internships hub

    Fermilab’s internship portfolio spans high school through graduate school: high-school research and JROTC programs, undergraduate tracks in physics, engineering, and quantum computing, veterans’ programs, the lab’s SULI and CCI slots, and graduate fellowships. The roster changes year to year, which is why the durable link is the hub itself.

    For high-school students through graduate students, depending on program. Typical timing: summer-cycle programs generally take applications in the preceding autumn and winter; each program’s page carries its own cycle. Verified August 2026.

  • Brookhaven National Laboratory education programs

    Brookhaven hosts SULI and CCI and runs its own ladder of programs from K-12 up: high-school research programs, undergraduate internships, and a visiting faculty program. As the home of RHIC and the Electron-Ion Collider project, NSLS-II, and a medical-isotope program, placements can be directly accelerator-relevant, including cyclotron-adjacent isotope work.

    For high-school students through faculty, depending on program. Typical timing: summer programs generally recruit in the preceding autumn and winter. Verified August 2026.

  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory education programs

    Oak Ridge’s education office covers undergraduate internships (including the lab’s SULI and CCI slots), graduate research, and early-career placements; its accelerator-relevant facility is the Spallation Neutron Source linac and accumulator complex. The hub page is a directory, with each program’s mechanics one level down.

    For high-school students through postdocs, depending on program. Typical timing: DOE-wide programs follow the SULI and CCI cycles; for the rest, check the program page. Verified August 2026.

  • Los Alamos National Laboratory student programs

    Los Alamos hosts a large annual cohort of student and postgraduate interns across undergraduate and graduate programs, summer schools, and military and ROTC research tracks. Accelerator relevance runs through LANSCE, the laboratory’s half-mile proton linac and its user facilities; placements there are negotiated at the group level; there is no dedicated accelerator program page.

    For undergraduate and graduate students. Typical timing: student hiring typically concentrates in the winter and spring before summer terms. Verified August 2026.

  • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory internships

    SLAC hosts SULI and CCI — it is a named host laboratory on the DOE program pages — and maintains its own internship and student-resources sections through its careers pages. At a laboratory built around accelerators, a SULI or CCI placement has a strong chance of being accelerator-relevant — read the project descriptions, and ask about group placement.

    For undergraduates via SULI and CCI; other tracks per SLAC’s careers pages. Typical timing: via the DOE cycles for SULI and CCI. Verified August 2026.

International placements

Non-US laboratories run summer and placement programs that take international students, several with accelerator work as an explicit option on the application form. Stipend and allowance figures are the programs’ own published numbers at verification; treat them as indicative and check the linked pages.

  • CERN Summer Student Programme

    Eight to thirteen weeks at CERN in summer, working inside a research or engineering team, with an extensive parallel lecture programme that is a well-known curriculum in its own right. The eligibility floor: bachelor’s or master’s students (not PhD) in physics, engineering, computer science, or mathematics who will have completed at least three years of full-time study by the summer and are still enrolled; member-state and non-member-state streams both exist. Paid: a subsistence allowance of roughly 94 CHF per day, health insurance, and travel support depending on circumstances.

    For late-stage undergraduates and master’s students. Typical timing: annual summer cycle; applications typically open in the preceding autumn and close in winter. Verified August 2026.

  • CERN Technical Studentship

    Four to twelve months at CERN during a bachelor’s or master’s degree in applied physics, engineering, computing, or mathematics — the hands-on placement track, and the one closest to accelerator-technology work: magnets, RF, vacuum, controls, cryogenics. The floor: nationals of a CERN member or associate member state with at least eighteen months of studies completed, still enrolled full-time, with working English or French. Paid a net allowance of roughly 3,486 CHF per month, plus insurance, travel, and paid leave.

    For undergraduate and master’s students in technical fields. Typical timing: two selection rounds per year; applications typically open in late summer and late winter. Verified August 2026.

  • CERN Doctoral Student Programme

    PhD students spend six months to three years at CERN doing thesis research in an applied field, accelerator physics and technology among them, while enrolled at a home university that accepts the CERN work toward the thesis. Open to member and associate member state nationals; a net allowance of roughly 3,907 CHF per month plus insurance and a family supplement.

    For enrolled PhD candidates. Typical timing: cyclical selection rounds like the technical studentship, typically reopening in late summer. Verified August 2026.

  • DESY Summer Student Programme (Germany)

    About seven and a half weeks from late July to early September working in a DESY group in Hamburg or Zeuthen, with accelerators as one of four explicit research-field options alongside photon science, particle physics, and astroparticle physics — an applicant can choose accelerator work on the application itself. Open to undergraduates in physics and related disciplines; paid a daily allowance, with hostel accommodation and travel support detailed on the program page.

    For advanced undergraduates and early master’s students. Typical timing: annual summer cycle; applications are taken in the preceding winter. Verified August 2026.

  • TRIUMF co-op and undergraduate programs (Canada)

    Canada’s national accelerator laboratory — home of what TRIUMF itself describes as the world’s largest cyclotron — takes about 100 co-operative-education students per year, roughly thirty per four-month term, in accelerator science, nuclear medicine, engineering, and computing; eight-month extended placements are common. Positions are paid, with travel and accommodation assistance depending on appointment type — see the program page — and international students come via co-op agreements and MITACS.

    For co-op-enrolled undergraduates, Canadian and international. Typical timing: three terms per year, each posted roughly a term ahead on TRIUMF’s student career site; summer-term jobs typically appear in midwinter. Verified August 2026.

  • PSI Summer Student Programme (Switzerland)

    Eight- to twelve-week summer internships at the Paul Scherrer Institute for students finishing a bachelor’s or enrolled in a master’s programme, with financial support covering local living costs and a July–August programme of lectures, tours, and student talks. Projects span PSI’s centers, including accelerator-adjacent work: the institute runs a 590 MeV cyclotron, SwissFEL, and the Swiss Light Source, and posts longer standalone trainee positions in accelerator groups on its jobs board.

    For late bachelor’s and master’s students. Typical timing: annual summer cycle; applications close in the preceding winter or spring. Verified August 2026.

  • KEK / J-PARC Summer Student Program (Japan)

    Up to eight weeks (four for theory) between mid-June and mid-August, embedded in a KEK or J-PARC research group, with accelerator science as an explicit field option. The floor: late-undergraduate through master’s students; mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics are desirable but not mandatory. International students receive airfare, dormitory fees, a daily stipend of roughly 1,500 JPY, and domestic transport; Japanese students receive dormitory, per-diem, and travel support.

    For late-stage undergraduates and master’s students. Typical timing: annual summer cycle; applications typically close in late winter. Verified August 2026.

  • RIKEN International Program Associate (Japan)

    For non-Japanese PhD candidates at universities holding a joint-graduate-school agreement with RIKEN: one to three years of thesis research at a RIKEN campus under RIKEN supervision. For accelerator people that means the Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, the RI Beam Factory and its cyclotron chain, including the superconducting ring cyclotron. Support covers round-trip airfare, a living allowance of 5,200 JPY per day, free or subsidized housing, and insurance.

    For PhD candidates at partner universities. Typical timing: calls twice a year, in spring and early autumn. Verified August 2026.

Medical-side training: cyclotron operation and radiopharmacy

Neither route below is open-enrollment; they document how employed medical-cyclotron staff are trained. This training economy is run by international agencies and equipment vendors, and the gates are government nomination for one route and employment for the other; the medical doors on the careers page describe the jobs this training leads into.

  • IAEA technical cooperation fellowships and regional training courses

    The IAEA trains cyclotron operators, radiopharmacists, and nuclear-medicine technologists through its technical cooperation programme: fellowships of typically up to one year, awarded within technical-cooperation projects and nominated through the applicant’s national authorities instead of open individual application, plus regional training courses — for example a one-week regional course on cyclotron-based radiopharmaceuticals hosted at ANSTO in Australia, attended by operators, radiopharmacists, technologists, and physicians from fifteen member states. This is a structured route into medical cyclotron work for people in member states without domestic training capacity; the eligibility floor is professional employment in a relevant national institution.

    For working professionals in member-state institutions, with a government-nomination gate. Typical timing: no public application cycle; entry is tied to technical-cooperation project cycles through each country’s national liaison office. Verified August 2026.

  • IBA Academy (Belgium)

    The training arm of IBA RadioPharma Solutions, the radiopharmacy division of the cyclotron vendor IBA: structured hands-on training on cyclotron operation and chemistry modules at a fully equipped center in Belgium, plus on-site training at customer facilities and immersion placements, progressing from foundations to advanced operation, with GMP and quality consulting alongside. This is customer training: access comes with working at a facility that operates IBA equipment, and vendor equipment courses are one component of how working operators are trained. Operating a medical cyclotron and producing radiopharmaceuticals also requires site-specific supervised training, radiation-safety authorization, and quality and GMP qualification under national licensing — none of which a vendor course substitutes for; Accelerator Careers documents the access model.

    For working professionals at IBA-equipped facilities. Typical timing: no public application cycle; training is arranged with the vendor. Verified August 2026.

Free self-study archives

Everything below is free and requires no application. Together with the Cockcroft Institute and John Adams Institute lecture archives in the schools section above, these collections cover the accelerator curriculum from introductory to advanced level, readable from home. For a sequenced reading order through this material, see the self-study shelf.

  • USPAS materials archive

    Decades of two-week-course materials from past USPAS sessions — lecture notes and problem sets — openly listed by course and year. Among the free sources checked for this page it is the broadest single archive; for self-study it is the anchor collection.

    For self-studiers at any level with the stated course prerequisites. Typical timing: none; the archive is open. Verified August 2026.

  • USPAS GitHub organization

    Public repositories for students and instructors in USPAS courses: computational labs and course code, from fundamentals labs to optimization, machine learning, and simulation courses. Complements the materials table with runnable material.

    For self-studiers comfortable with scientific Python. Typical timing: none; the repositories are public. Verified August 2026.

  • CERN Accelerator School proceedings

    The index of past CAS schools back to 1983, with links to proceedings where they were published — the CERN Yellow Reports, textbook-length treatments of introductory, advanced, and topical material. Recent schools also link lecture-slide pages, with access varying by school. Each proceedings volume carries a DOI — older volumes under the 10.5170 prefix, newer school proceedings in CYRSP form — and the DOI printed on a volume is the persistent way to cite and reach it; this index is the browsable entry point.

    For self-studiers wanting textbook-depth treatments. Typical timing: none; the proceedings are published open-access. Verified August 2026.

  • JACoW — Joint Accelerator Conferences Website

    The open proceedings platform of the world’s accelerator conferences: its conference series (IPAC, LINAC, SRF, and more) span hundreds of conferences and tens of thousands of papers, downloadable without charge. This is where accelerator engineering practice gets published, and open publication has been the collaboration’s long-standing model.

    For anyone past the textbook stage: practice, not coursework. Typical timing: none; the papers are open. Verified August 2026.