On 21 – 23 April, the VII general MPD Collaboration Meeting was held in the mixed format: in-person in the Conference Hall of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics and online for external participants. More than 190 senior scientists, students and engineers from all over the world – from China to Mexico – took part in the meeting. During the 3 days of plenary sessions almost 50 reports were presented.

The Collaboration status, as well as a summary of the preparation of the main detector components, were presented and put in perspective in comparison to the timeline of the completion of the NICA accelerator complex. The recent milestone of the successful launch and the start of the commissioning of the Booster accelerator was highly appreciated. The readiness of the software and computing infrastructure was also discussed.

Five Physics Working Groups of MPD have shown the recent performance studies using the massive productions of Monte-Carlo simulated events. These results were shown recently at large international scientific conferences. In addition, special talks focusing on specific studies were given, including by young members of the Collaboration. The publication on the status of the MPD Detector as well as its physics performance is undergoing the Collaboration Review in preparation for submission.

During the session of the MPD Institutional Board, new members of the Executive Committee were elected. Three institutions from Serbia, Poland and Mexico were accepted as new members of the MPD Collaboration.

Photo by Elena Puzynina