Europe's 'Big Bang' particle research organisation CERN, now conducting mankind's biggest scientific experiment, is to open membership to all countries which qualify to join.
Until now, the 56-year-old centre near Geneva on the borders of France and Switzerland, with a 10 billion Swiss franc annual budget, has admitted only European states as full members, although many others take part in its work.
"This is a giant leap for particle physics that recognises the increasing globalisation of the field," said Michel Spiro, president of CERN's ruling council, which made the decision at the weekend.
Rolf Heuer, director-general of the body whose scientists have won a raft of Nobel prizes and where the World Wide Web was invented in 1989, said the change reflected global interest in research into the birth of the universe.
The change will not necessarily mean more money coming into CERN, whose budget is fixed for five years and then shared among its members, according to spokesman James Gillies.
But it will mean there is a potential source of extra revenue for the organisation, which critics say swallows huge funds that could be used for more practical purposes.
Supporters, and the governments that vote its budget, say there are many economic and health spin-offs from its work.
Founded in 1954 by 12 European countries with the aim of restoring the continent's role in physics research after the ravages of World War Two, CERN - the European Organisation for Nuclear Research - currently has 20 members.
But it also has nearly 8 000 scientists from around 80 countries working in or with its programmes.
Cosmic origins research is the focus for CERN's Large Hadron Collider, in operation since 30 March in a 27km oval tunnel deep underground, in which elementary particles are smashed together at the speed of light.
The collisions recreate events that happened a fraction of a second after the primeval explosion some 13.7 billion years ago that brought the universe into being.
Six non-European nations are CERN observer members - India, Israel, Japan, Russia, Turkey and the US - as well as the European Commission and the UN educational, scientific and cultural organisation UNESCO.
Among these, both Israel and Turkey are already on course to become full members - probably with non-observers Cyprus, Serbia and Slovenia - by the end of the year.
The plans provide for observers to be gradually replaced by a new category of associate members.
Like observers, these will have no voting rights on the council but, also like observers, will have to take a share of CERN's budget. However, the announcement said, associate status would be a halfway house to full membership.
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