Context

Five-yearly reviews typically take several years to complete, from the initial data collection to decision-making by the Council and implementation of final decisions. The five-yearly review upon which the Council decided in December 2015 was extensive, and given its scope, the actual implementation could only be fully completed by the end of 2018. 
In addition, it is considered to be in CERN’s interest that the five-yearly review be scheduled with one year of overlap between the current and incoming management team. 
On this basis, the Management proposed that the next five-yearly review would commence one year later than 2018, be carried out from 2019 to 2021, for implementation in 2022. This proposal was unanimously approved by Council at its meeting on 13 December 2018. 
This proposed solution has been discussed with the Staff Association. Although the Staff Association has expressed a strong preference for strict application of the five-year interval between five-yearly reviews, it has also recognised that the exceptional extension of the mandate of the previous Director-General has de facto synchronised the timing of five-yearly reviews with that of the change of management of the Organization, which for the last five-yearly review had negative repercussions for the implementation. Hence, the Staff Association did not oppose this proposed solution and concurred that an exceptional shift of the five-yearly review schedule would indeed be in the Organization’s best interests.
This 5YR 2021 timeline allows the full implementation and the impact analysis of the previous five-yearly review to be completed first. It also provides the opportunity for exchanges and the transfer of experience between the current and incoming Directors-General in 2020, during the key preparation phase of the five-yearly review proposals. 

An optimal resolution image of the timeline below can be downloaded here.