The experimental research is carried out The experimental research is carried out at high energy accelerator centres in the USA and in Europe in collaboration with international scientific teams. Important experiments now in progress include the following: production and decay of charm, bottom and top heavy quark states; quark and gluon structure functions in the proton; search for fundamental symmetry violations; the search for quark-gluon plasma and the behaviour of nuclear matter in violent collisions.

Complementing these experimental studies is a dynamic theoretical program which includes topics in quantum chromodynamics; physics beyond the standard model; quark-gluon plasma; nuclear and particle fragmentation; particle astrophysics; cosmology and quantum gravity.