This two-week school usually take place between late August and early October. It is organized every year (initially, every second year) since 1970. (Read more about the history of the school)

Every year the main CSC goes to a different European country, and is organised together with the hosting university. The school has visited 22 countries so far.

The school welcomes around 60-80 students, typically from 20-30 different nationalities, and coming from various universities and research centres based usually in Europe, but also Asia, North America and elsewhere. Since 1970, almost 4000 persons have attended the school.

The programme consists of more than 50 hours of classes, covering a variety of topics grouped in three main themes: physics computing, software engineering and data technologies. For more details, see the programme of the 2020 edition.