  The objective of this first workshop on Multiple Partonic Interactions (MPI)
at the LHC is to raise the profile of MPI studies, summarizing the legacy from
the older phenomenology at hadronic colliders and favouring further specific
contacts between the theory and experimental communities. The MPI are
experiencing a growing popularity and are currently widely invoked to account
for observations that would not be explained otherwise: the activity of the
Underlying Event, the cross sections for multiple heavy flavour production, the
survival probability of large rapidity gaps in hard diffraction, etc. At the
same time, the implementation of the MPI effects in the Monte Carlo models is
quickly proceeding through an increasing level of sophistication and complexity
that in perspective achieves deep general implications for the LHC physics. The
ultimate ambition of this workshop is to promote the MPI as unification concept
between seemingly heterogeneous research lines and to profit of the complete
experimental picture in order to constrain their implementation in the models,
evaluating the spin offs on the LHC physics program.
