Particle physicists from Sri Lanka, who had earlier been working in research laboratories in the US, have contacted CERN to explore possibilities for participating in CERN’s physics programme. Following these contacts, some students from the University of Ruhuna have participated in the CERN Summer Student Programme. One has gone on to graduate studies and has completed her PhD working on the RPC system of the CMS experiment together with physicists from the Tata Institute in India.

The collaboration between Sri Lanka and CERN was initially carried out under the Expression of Interest signed between the CMS Collaboration and the University of Ruhuna in 2006. CERN and Sri Lanka signed an International Cooperation Agreement (ICA) in February 2017.

Sri Lanka subsequently joined the CMS collaboration as a full member via a consortium of groups from the University of Colombo and the University of Ruhuna.

Sri Lankan students and teachers participate in the respective programmes of CERN.

In February 2019, Sri Lanka hosted the second CERN South Asian High Energy Physics Instrumentation (SAHEPI) workshop on detector technology and applications, as part of a wider effort for regional cooperation in particle physics.