The mission of HL-2A is to explore the key physical topics relevant to ITER and to the advanced tokamak operation (e.g. the operation of future HL-2M), such as the access of H-mode, energetic particle physics, edge-localized mode (ELM) mitigation/suppression and disruption mitigation. Since the 2016 Fusion Energy Conference, the HL-2A team has focused on the investigations on the following areas: (i) pedestal dynamics and L–H transition, (ii) techniques of ELM control, (iii) turbulence and transport, (iv) energetic particle physics. The HL-2A results demonstrated that the increase of mean shear flow plays a key role in triggering L–I and I–H transitions, while the change of flow is mainly induced by the ion pressure gradient. Both mitigation and suppression of ELMs were realized by laser blow-off seeded impurity (Al, Fe, W). The 30% Ne mixture supersonic molecular beam injection seeding also robustly induced ELM mitigation. The ELMs were mitigated by low-hybrid current drive. The stabilization of m/n = 1/1 ion fishbone activities by electron cyclotron resonance heating was found on the HL-2A. A new m/n = 2/1 ion fishbone activity was observed recently, and the modelling indicated that passing fast ions dominantly contribute to the driving of 2/1 fishbone. The non-linear coupling between the toroidal Alfven eigenmode and tearing mode (TM) led to the generation of a high frequency mode with the toroidal mode number n = 0. The turbulence was modulated by TM when the island width exceeds a threshold and the modulation is localized merely in the inner area of the islands. Meanwhile, turbulence radial spread took place across the island region.