In 1990 the SL Division was created, combining exploitation of both LEP (Large Electron Positron Collider) and Super Proton Synchrotron Division (SPS).

In addition to the exploitation of the SPS and LEP, the SL groups were heavily involved in design and development work on LEP200 (upgrade programme), LHC (Large Hadron Collider project) and CLIC (Compact e+e- Linear Collider).

In 2000 LEP accelerator achieved a collision energy of 209 GeV. The machine was closed in November.

In 2001 following the closure of LEP, the name of SL division is changed from "SPS and LEP" to "SPS and LHC" keeping the same abbreviation "SL". It continued running the SPS accelerator and prepared to run the LHC.