In these proceedings, we highlight recent developments from both theory and experiment related to the global description of matter produced in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions as presented during the Quark Matter 2012 conference.
Some highlights from the 18$^{rm th}$ international conference on $B$ physics at frontier machines are presented, including first results from the full LHC Run 2 data and from early Belle II data.
I review the three broad areas where major progress has been reported: The phase structure of strongly interacting matter, the properties of matter at the instant when it freezes out into individual hadrons in the final stage of the expansion of the hot fireball, and the status of the main signatures of the formation of a quark-gluon plasma. In the final section I present some thoughts about what should be done next, both in the experiemntal and the theoretical arena.
The committee for the study of the extension of the Hadron Experimental Facility was formed under the Hadron Hall Users Association in August, 2015. This document is a summary of the discussions among the committee members, and documented by a part of the members listed below.