IPPOG became official scientific collaboration upon the signature of MoU by first 10 IPPOG Members in December 2016.

Growth of the collaboration kept up its pace. When IPPOG first decided to become a collaboration in 2016, there was concern that some of the IPPOG original members would have difficulty finding a ministry, laboratory or educational institution to agree to sign the MoU and commit to annual contributions. Therefore, these original members were given a temporary status of “Candidate Member” until the MoU signature.

All concerns were alleviated this past year, as the last of the original member countries, South Africa, Israel and Bulgaria, signed up as Members, and the last original member laboratory, DESY, signed up as an Associate Member. Moreover, with the additional signing of Georgia and GSI, IPPOG grew to 37 members and 2 associate members, with others planning to join in the coming year.

The 25th of January 2021, when the last candidate member Bulgaria signed the IPPOG MoU, thus marks an important milestone in IPPOG’s journey, as all its members are since fully engaged to contribute to the IPPOG’s important mission both financially and In-Kind.