National Institute for Materials Science

NIMS is Japan's sole National Research and Development Agency specializing in materials science. NIMS is charged with basic research and development of materials science, and to advance the level of expertise in the field.

Research Policy
To build a sustainable society, NIMS has conducted research in order to produce new materials that uses the ultimate technology, known as Nanotechnology — this being a technology enabling research concerning atoms/molecules in the materials science field. We also conduct research that realizes higher functions for materials.

Mission
To fulfill our mission, NIMS has promoted research that is at the leading edge of the world’s materials science and has covered materials encompassing not only metals or ceramics but also organic materials and biomaterials.
Activities related thereto has led to the development of a new field that uses Nanotechnology and of new materials that have resulted in innovations.

• Fundamental research and generic / infrastructural technology research and development
• Dissemination of research results and promotion of their applications
• Shared use of NIMS facilities and equipment
• Training of researchers and engineers

Also, we have led to entire materials science as a core international organization — promoting technology transfer that uses our research results, shared facilities and equipment, in addition to encouraging human resource development.

Vision
NIMS has the stated materials strategy extending over the mid- and long-term perspective, and we will go forward with the following objectives in mind for the next 20 years.
Exploring New Research Fields
Many innovative research work such as those related to carbon nanotube or fullerene have resulted from what researchers call “Serendipity” during the original research process. NIMS has promoted such original research process and brought forth a new research field that brings together organic materials, biomatters, ceramics and metals while opening up the materials science area covering nanoscale compounds as exemplified by the “transistor”, the “superlattice” and the “tunnel magnetoresistance” among others.

NIMS has conducted further enhancement of an already strong research field that has accumulated skills under stable, long-term perspectives. For example, we have promoted the development of new materials based on fundamental and basic research as well as carrying out maintenance and sharing of the world’s most advanced research equipment owned by NIMS. Furthermore, we have developed and applied cutting-edge Nanotechnology.