Researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, first created the chemical element copernicium.

The GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research is a federally and state co-funded heavy ion (Schwerion) research center in Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded in 1969 as the Society for Heavy Ion Research, abbreviated GSI, to conduct research on and with heavy-ion accelerators. It is the only major user research center in the State of Hesse.

Darmstadt is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area. Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse after Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, and Kassel.

Copernicium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Cn and atomic number 112. Its known isotopes are extremely radioactive, and have only been created in a laboratory. The most stable known isotope, copernicium-285, has a half-life of approximately 30 seconds. Copernicium was first created in February 1996 by the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research near Darmstadt, Germany. It was named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus on his 537th anniversary.