Research efforts of the Helsinki group are closely connected with the educational and detector development activities; the group has a proven track record of providing an efficient physics driven framework for education and technology transfer.

A unique experiment is under making at CERN. Forward physics practitioners of the TOTEM, CMS and FP420 collaborations are combining their efforts to set up a spectrometer that covers more phase space than any other collider experiment so far.  The aim is to measure properties of the strong interaction in extreme conditions. The experiment will also search for novel physics phenomena by using a highly selective process facilitated by colour singlet exchange: pp → p + X + p and characterized by a forward-backward pair of leading protons and a central system with the quantum numbers JPC = 0++.

The forward physics program is highly complementary to the base line LHC physics scenarios: elastic and diffractive scattering or low-x processes could not be investigated without further tracking and calorimetry at small polar angles. With the extended detector coverage, physics runs with different optics choices will allow the LHC to be used to its full – and effectively transform the machine into a laboratory of QCD asymptotics (elastic and diffractive scattering), deeply inelastic scattering (low-x processes), and gluon physics (central exclusive diffraction).