Iran has a strong intellectual tradition, which has been manifest in theoretical physics and engineering, in particular. CERN maintained contacts with individual Iranian theoreticians, notably from the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) in Teheran. CERN has hosted Iranian theorists, and several individuals of Iranian origin participated in the CERN experimental programme.

At present, Iran is making a renewed and strong effort to strengthen its relations with CERN and its scientific community, based on an International Cooperation Agreement (ICA) which was signed in 2001.

In May 2014, IPM signed two Memoranda of Understanding, one with CMS and one with CLIC. IPM has since then been a full member of CMS and is coordinating Iran’s contribution to the collaboration. Such contributions include the construction of detector components and Iran is also contributing to the data analysis and preparing for future upgrade activities for CMS. The contribution to CLIC is in the design of RF components. Iran is also participating to the Grid infrastructure and the IRAN-GRID CA is hosted by IPM. Iran has also joined the FCC study through IPM.

Almost every year students and teachers participate in the Summer Student and High School Teacher programmes at CERN.

A visit of CMS representatives to IPM in April 2019 launched the affiliation of Isfahan University of Technology to CMS as full member. Smaller universities are also expected to start a contribution through an affiliation with IPM.