Matjaž Kek (born 9 September 1961) is a former Slovenian footballer and current manager of Croatian club HNK Rijeka. He is the former manager of the Slovenia national team.
Kek started his professional football career at his home club Maribor in 1979, before moving to the Austrian club Spittal/Drau in 1985, where he spent 3 seasons. He then transferred to another Austrian club, GAK of the Austrian Bundesliga where he played for 7 years. After that he returned to Maribor, where from 1995 to 1999 he won 3 Slovenian league titles, before retiring. He spent most of his career playing in defense, mostly in the centre back position and was known for his leadership abilities.
After finishing his career as a player, Kek stayed at Maribor, serving as an assistant coach for one season, before being appointed manager in 2000. He immediately won the league title in the 2000–01 season. Under his guidance the team won the league again in 2003. In 2006 he was the coach of the Slovenian under-15 and under-16 national football teams. On 3 January 2007, Kek was appointed manager of the Slovenia national team, which he led to the 2010 FIFA World Cup after beating Russia in the play-offs.
The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (高エネルギー加速器研究機構, Kō Enerugī Kasokuki Kenkyū Kikō), known as KEK, is a national organization whose purpose is to operate the largest particle physics laboratory in Japan, which is situated in Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture. It was established in 1997. The term "KEK" is also used to refer to the laboratory itself, which employs approximately 900 employees. KEK's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics, material science, structural biology, radiation science, computing science, nuclear transmutation and so on. Numerous experiments have been constructed at KEK by the internal and international collaborations that have made use of them. Makoto Kobayashi, emeritus professor at KEK, is known globally for his work on CP-violation, and was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Coordinates: 36°08′55″N 140°04′37″E / 36.14861°N 140.07694°E / 36.14861; 140.07694
KEK was established in 1997 in a reorganization of the Institute of Nuclear Study, the University of Tokyo (established in 1955), the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (established in 1971), and the Meson Science Laboratory of the University of Tokyo (established in 1988). However, the reorganization was not a simple merge of the aforementioned laboratories. As such, KEK was not the only new institute created at that time, because not all of the work of the parent institutions fell under the umbrella of high energy physics; for example, the Center for Nuclear Study, the University of Tokyo, was concurrently established for low energy nuclear physics in a research partnership with RIKEN.
KEK is a Japanese particle physics research organization.
KEK may also refer to: