The fourth meeting of High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) International Advisory Committee (IAC) was held at the HEPS campus chaired by Harald Reichert from DESY and co-chaired by ZHAO Zhentang from SARI. The three-day meeting brought together 21 leading international experts to review the project's progress and future plans.

PAN Weimin, the HEPS project director, delivered a welcome address. He welcomed IAC members and expressed his hope that the meeting would review the progress of HEPS as well as the Phase II plan. During the meeting, DONG Yuhui, deputy executive director, and 40 speakers presented the latest progress on HEPS, including joint commissioning, KPP measurement, and the Phase II plan. Over the past six years, following 5 rounds of joint commissioning, HEPS successfully passed the performance acceptance on Oct. 29, 2025. A suite of world-class performance beamlines has been commissioned, followed by 2 rounds of pilot operation. As of Feb. 11, 2026, 222 research proposals have been implemented at 13 user beamlines of HEPS, with more than 700 users from 91 institutes. Additionally, HEPS is planned to officially commence operations in mid-2026. The first call for General user Proposals from worldwide users has been issued, with the deadline of April 30, 2026. Approved proposals will be valid for two years.

In its concluding summary, the IAC recognized the team's significant achievements and provided recommendations for the facility’s ongoing optimization stable operation, and future development. Despite all odds the HEPS team has managed to finish the project construction phase even ahead of time while reaching all the predefined KPPs. The IAC expresses its admiration for this achievement. The HEPS management and staff are to be commended for their tireless and heroic efforts to get to this point while at the same time already working out a proposal for a Phase II construction project. The challenge now is to transition the facility into steady-state, sustainable operation adjusting to conditions that can be upheld in the long term while gearing up for the Phase II project.

As the final IAC meeting during the construction phase, the event included a review of the committee's contributions since its establishment in July 2018. The successful meetings have been instrumental in guiding the project from design to its upcoming transition to user operation, and further enhanced international cooperation and exchanges in the field of synchrotron radiation technology. The HEPS management board extends the deepest appreciation to all members and earnest hope that the IAC members will continue to support for HEPS’s growth and progress.

The HEPS, one of the key projects listed in the 13th Five-year Plan for national major scientific and technological infrastructure construction, is designed to deliver the world’s brightest hard X-rays, meeting the urgent needs for high-energy, high-brightness and high-coherence X-rays in original and innovative research for both basic and engineering sciences. The project commenced construction in June 2019.

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The fourth meeting of HEPS IAC was held on Mar. 25-27, 2026.

A closed executive session of the IAC Caucus preceded the meeting.

The meeting was held with a plenary session and two parallel sessions focusing on accelerator and beamline respectively.

During the meeting, the IAC members toured the storage ring and all 15 beamlines on the first evening after presentations, gaining a direct understanding of HEPS’ operation status and laying a foundation for more targeted professional advice.