Collaboration with CERN started with Saudi participation in the LINAC4 project. A warm prototype was constructed in Saudi Arabia and then qualified at CERN. A King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) engineer followed the project at CERN doing a PhD thesis on the subject. After the signing of an International Cooperation Agreement in 2006, a Protocol was worked out and signed in 2008 in order to provide an operation framework for the execution of the original agreement.

Cooperation has been at three levels: participation in the construction of LINAC4 with an in-kind contribution of hardware to be constructed in Saudi Arabia via KACST, helping KACST to build up an high-energy physics community including experimentalists to participate in existing and future CERN programmes, and contacts in theoretical physics. Summer students sent to CERN are now working on PhDs with European and US groups on CERN programmes. KACST plans to establish contacts between existing theory groups in Saudi Arabia and CERN scientists in order to create common research activities and possible cooperation.