Following the signature of an International Cooperation Agreement (ICA) between CERN and the Ministry of Higher Education earlier in the year, the Minister visited CERN in May 2006. Subsequently, an Egyptian team has joined the CMS experiment.

With the active support of the Egyptian Academy of Sciences, Helwan and Cairo Universities are setting up RPC laboratories. These will enable local skills to be developed, which in turn should allow Egypt to play a role in the CMS upgrade, with the help of Egyptian students currently being trained at CERN.

On 2 October 2012, CERN and the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) signed A Protocol to the ICA concerning participation of universities and scientific institutions from Egypt in the two high-energy physics experiments, joining CMS as full members and ALICE as associate members.