The MBI's research focuses on investigating fundamental symmetries and interactions and addresses the following questions:

• What does physics look like beyond the Standard Model of particle physics? 
• What are the properties of the forces that exist in nature? 
• What is the origin of the mass of the visible and invisible universe? 
• Why do the remains of the Big Bang consist only of matter and not of antimatter?

To this end, experiments are conducted at the highest energies to generate massive particles, as well as precision experiments at low energies to detect possible deviations in quantum corrections.

In order to gain new insights into these questions, new experimental methods are also being developed and implemented at the MBI. These include both the construction of new detectors and the design of algorithms based on artificial intelligence.

The MBI makes key contributions to the largest particle physics experiments currently underway, such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Antiproton Decelerator/ELENA at CERN in Geneva, the KEK high-energy physics laboratory in Japan, and the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. In this way, the MBI is actively shaping the future of particle physics. Experiments and preparations for the large research laboratories are also carried out in Vienna. There is close cooperation with the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Vienna to train the next generation of physicists by involving them in current research activities. The MBI shares its enthusiasm for particle physics with the public through a diverse outreach program.

The MBI was founded in 2025 and emerged from the two former ÖAW institutes “Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics (SMI)” and “Institute for High Energy Physics (HEPHY)”. 

A description of the founding history of HEPHY can be found here, and the history of SMI is described here.