Contacts established with the female campus of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) University towards the end of 2003 have resulted in the participation of several students in the CERN Summer Student Programme in all subsequent years. These students worked in ATLAS (on muon chambers), in CMS (on crystals), in ALICE (on physics simulations) and in CLIC (on alignment). Their supervisors have all been very satisfied, and it has been agreed that this initiative should be continued and developed.

Visits to CERN from scientific staff from the UAE University to CERN resulted in an agreed plan to build on these contacts in order to establish a small particle physics and medical physics community in the United Arab Emirates. In addition to the continued participation in the CERN Summer Student programme, collaboration between faculty staff at the UAE University and CERN researchers are being instigated. In order for the UAE scientific community to be exposed to the wide range of possibilities for research at CERN, a workshop was held at the UAEU in 2007.

An International Cooperation Agreement (ICA) was signed with the UAE in 2006.

The most recent developments concerning the UAE are with the University of Sharjah. Following a visit by the Chancellor of the University and the signature of an Expression of Interest with the ATLAS experiment, in November 2018 the university organised its first International Conference on Particle Physics, with talks from both the ATLAS and CMS experiments. There is strong support from authorities at the university to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with ATLAS and for a Protocol to the ICA to be signed between the government and CERN.