After the site assessment at ITP, international expert panel organized by CAS drew the following conclusion: through The Pilot Project of Knowledge Innovation Program (PPKIP), ITP is now a domestic leading institute in domestic theoretical physics with international competitiveness, but it is yet not a world top-class institute in theoretical physics for current structure and limited resources. In response to this conclusion, ITP successfully strived for resources and established the Key Laboratory of Frontiers in Theoretical Physics at CAS (KLFTP) in 2008 with the purpose to strengthen the opening, communication, cooperation and innovation of ITP and enhance the integration of theoretical research and experiments so as to effectively promote the integration of physics with other disciplines for development.

The newly-built Key Laboratory of Frontiers in Theoretical Physics will focus on the “problem-driven” mode in combination with advantages of original “people-driven” mode of ITP and “program-driven” mode of KITPC. It puts emphasis on important scientific problems emerging in new research domains and challenging problems in the frontiers of theoretical physics, such as the twenty-five problems to be solved in the next twenty-five years summarized by Professor David Gross in 2005. It also aims at solving some most basic problems in nature and exploring new research fields to foster the research in frontiers of inter-disciplinary subjects. Hopefully we will eventually achieve our strategic goal by combining “problem-driven”, “people-driven” and “program-driven” (3P) modes under the large frame of ITP of CAS. So far we have selected 18 members from ITP Academic Consulting Committee as the Consultative Committee of the laboratory to provide academic consulting services and guidance to the laboratory.

In 2011,the KLFTP was promoted as State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics (SKLTP) by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Director: Prof. Bing-Song Zou
Chairman of the SKLTP Academic Committee: Prof. En-Ge Wang