Who can use WLCG

How would you like to be part of WLCG?


Individuals and schools

Contribute home computer resources

If you are an individual wishing to contribute your home computer resources, you can become involved in the LHC@home 2.0 project as part of the volunteer computing program.

Student/School wanting to be part of a WLCG project

The WLCG project is concerned with coordinating the efforts of large scientific computing centres and large university departments that have significant investments in computing and networking.

However, schools and students may be able to get involved in some way.

If you wish to work on a project contributing to WLCG, you should contact a local university physics department that has some participation in the LHC physics program and discuss potential projects with them. Have a look at our CRIC Topology to see which institutes are taking part.

If you are based in the USA, there may be a local university that works with the Open Science Grid that can help you.

I want to access the LHC computing grid

To access the LHC computing grid, you must be registered with an LHC-recognised VO (Virtual Organisation). Refer to the dropdown option below under "Site admins and grid users".

Your VO will guide you in accessing the appropriate computing resources.

Users interested in other VOs, please refer to EGI Community Support or Open Science Grid User Support.


Site admins and grid users

Virtual Organisations

The following Virtual Organizations (VO) are supported by WLCG.

VO LHC Affiliation
ALICE ALICE experiment
ATLAS ATLAS experiment
CMS CMS experiment
DTEAM Used by EGI Operations to help set up and debug services at EGI sites
LHCB LHCb experiment
SixTrack Single Particle Tracking Code
MoEDAL MoEDAL experiment

If you are not sure which VO is relevant for you, your work activities will direct you to join the appropriate VO when required.

See also EGI Community Support or Open Science Grid User Support.

Setting up a VO (Europe)

To set up a VO, please go to the EGI Wiki, which explains policies and procedures.


Set up new sites or new Federations

Register a new site in an existing Federation

Any requests to be part of a WLCG Federation need to be explicitly sanctioned by the Federation Manager. This is because your site's contribution need to be taken into account when calculating the resource commitment per Federation each year.

First, verify that your institute has been covered by a Memorandum of Understanding with WLCG. To do this, contact the Federation Manager of the relevant country - see the Collaboration Board contacts to locate the Federation contact. This person will then be able to advise you which Federation you can be part of.

Next contact LCG Office (either an e-mail from you with the Federation Manager in copy, or an e-mail from the Federation Manager directly) with the following information about the site you wish to register:

  • The Federation you are part of eg. "Brazil, SPRACE, São Paulo"
  • The Accounting Name eg. "BR-SP-SPRACE"
  • The site name according to the GOCDB or OSG - eg. "SPRACE"

We will then arrange to include you in the monitoring tools, accounting and reliability/availability reports.

If your desired federation is not listed in CRIC, then this means your institute/country has not signed a Memorandum of Understanding with WLCG. Please contact the LCG Office to discuss and please also refer to the section Memorandum of Understanding for more details.

Set-up and Register new Site(s) in a new Federation

If you wish to register a new Federation, then your institute/national funding agency will be required to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with WLCG, to set up the framework of agreements regarding resources and services you will provide.

Please see Memorandum of Understanding for more details.

Last updated on: 31 Jan 2022