On 6 October, the 8th Models in Quantum Field Theory conference (MQFT-2025), co-organized by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, opened at the Euler International Mathematical Institute (Saint Petersburg). The event gathered about 200 participants from Algeria, China, Finland, India, Russia, Slovakia, Vietnam, and other countries, which will present around 120 scientific talks.

Mikhail Braun, honorary professor of the Department of High Energy and Elementary Particle Physics at Saint Petersburg State University (SPbSU), opened the event. He briefly outlined the conference’s history and recalled the scientist in whose memory it is traditionally held, the distinguished theoretical physicist Alexander Vasiliev, one of the eminent professors of the Department of High Energy Physics at SPbSU.

Vasiliev’s work on functional methods in quantum field theory with applications to condensed matter physics and turbulence phenomena gained international recognition. He was an excellent teacher who could explain complex topics simply. A group of his students formed the Vasiliev scientific school, which has been highly valued in the professional community for many years. “I am proud to have been Alexander Nikolaevich’s first scientific supervisor,” Mikhail Braun noted.

The first conference took place in 2007, a year after the scientist’s passing, and gathered slightly more than a dozen participants. By 2010, 55 researchers joined the event, and by 2022, their number had grown to 135. Meanwhile, the scope gradually expanded to cover all areas of theoretical physics. “Throughout its history, the conference has maintained its international status,” Mikhail Braun underlined. He expressed gratitude to the Joint Institute for participating and co-organizing the event.

The conference covers the most topical and important problems in the construction and study of quantum field theory (QFT) models in various fields of modern theoretical physics, which will be addressed in separate conference sections:

• mathematical methods in QFT;
• quantum field theory methods in elementary particle physics;
• field theory methods in statistical physics;
• gravity and cosmology;
• integrable models, symmetries in QFT, and quantum groups.

Participants will present their talks at plenums, sections, and poster sessions.

The plenary session opened with talks by Michal Hnatič, Sector Head at the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics at JINR (BLTP), “Statistical field theory across classical nonequilibrium noise-driven systems”, and Dmitry Kazakov, BLTP Director and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), “Multipurpose renormalization group as a consequence of locality of QFT”. In total, 36 scientists from BLTP at JINR will present talks at the conference.

The conference is organized by Saint Petersburg State University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, the Euler International Mathematical Institute, and the Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute of the Kurchatov Institute. The event is held with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia.

The MQFT-2025 conference proceedings, including oral and selected poster presentations, will be published after peer review in a special issue of the Theoretical and Mathematical Physics journal, published by the RAS Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The conference will continue until 10 October.