In late 2003, contact was established with the female campus of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) University, resulting in several students participating in the CERN Summer Student Programme in subsequent years. These students engaged in various projects within ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and CLIC, and their supervisors expressed high satisfaction with their work. As a result, it was agreed to continue and expand this initiative.

Recently, many UAE participating students in the CERN Summer Student Program were accepted to pursue their postgraduate studies as Master and PhD students in many universities in Europe and  US.  

Furthermore, visits to CERN by scientific staff from different UAE universities led to a plan to establish a particle physics and medical physics community in the UAE. This led to the signing of an International Cooperation Agreement (ICA) with the UAE in 2006. Over time, many students from Emirati universities continued to participate in the CERN Summer Student Programme, and various activities were organized at the University of Sharjah (UoS) and UAE University (UAEU). In 2007, UAEU hosted a workshop in collaboration with CERN.

Significant progress was made in 2017 when the University of Sharjah expressed interest in collaborating with the ATLAS experiment. This interest led to the co-organization of the first International Conference on Particle Physics (FISCPAC) hosted in the UAE in November 2018, in partnership with CERN and ICTP. The conference covered a wide range of topics, benefiting the HEP community in the UAE and GCC region; it brought together experts from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN. As a result of the successful conference, the University of Sharjah, in collaboration with UAEU and NYU Abu Dhabi, proposed to join the ATLAS collaboration at CERN. In 2021, the UAE-ATLAS cluster was established and became a full member of the ATLAS collaboration, reaching a significant milestone for the UAE in the field of particle physics. In 2023, thanks to CERN's efforts and engagement with LHC experiments, the UAE have a robust particle physics community. Plans are underway to organize HEP and HPC workshops to further develop local capabilities.