Established in June 2007 and officially launched in December 2008, the Institute for Advanced Materials and Technology (IAMT) represents the greatest strengths of the subject of Materials Science and Engineering in the USTB and it has been considered as the core unit for the construction of the National Double First-Class Initiative and the 985 Project Innovation Platform.

Starting from September 2015, the IAMT was authorized to enroll postgraduate students independently and 2 months later, the secondary labor union was founded correspondingly. After that, the Institute Party Committee was set up in June 2016.

Since the very beginning of its foundation, the IAMT has kept responding actively to the national calls, never forgotten the original aspiration and adhered steadfastly to its self-positioning, which is “Organizing major projects; Making significant achievements; Advancing the transformation of achievements into practice”.

While aiming at the development frontier of advanced materials and technology, the discipline construction of the IAMT is also closely tied to the great demand of national economic development and national defense modernization.

To achieve the goal of improving studies, expanding academic influence and increasing economic benefits, efforts in various aspects have been made by the IAMT staff, including highlighting interdisciplinary crossing, constructing an integrative production-teaching-research system combining basic research, applied basic research with development and industrialization of advanced materials, fostering new discipline directions, enhancing the quality of talent-training, creating production-teaching-research base, and forging an innovative team with significant national influence in the field of advanced materials and technology.

The IAMT has under its umbrella 5 institutes, including the Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Institute of Powder Metallurgy, Institute of Functional Materials, Corrosion and Protection Center and the Experimental Center for Materials. Based on these institutes and centers, a series of organizations and bases have been established including 2 international institutes, 2 national science and technology infrastructure platforms, 1 national experimental teaching demonstration center, 13 provincial-level key laboratories and engineering research centers, 18 research bases co-built with local governments, industries and enterprises.

Since 2009, the research projects undertaken by the IAMT have amounted to a number of 1540, among which there are 7 grants from the 973 Program, 19 grants from the 863 Program, 49 grants from the National Key R&D Program and 142 grants from the National Natural Science Foundation. The received research grants have come to 984 million RMB in total and have been over 100 million for 7 consecutive years.

So far, the institute has obtained 667 authorized invention patents, published 1541 SCI papers and 1643 EI papers as well as 45 books, and gained 54 achievement awards at provincial or ministerial level and 10 national achievement awards that include 1 first prize of National Teaching Achievement Award, 2 second prizes of National Technology and Invention Award, 6 second prizes of National Science and Technology Advancement Award, and 1 prize of He Liang & He Li Science and Technology Advancement Award.

 As papers by Prof. Li Xiaogang’s and Zhang Linxing’s teams respectively published in Nature (2015) and Science (2018), the IAMT has reached its new heights in basic research field. In 2017, the approval of another top-level research platform, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, greatly facilitates the development of new disciplines.

The IAMT boasts a highly competitive professional faculty, consisting of

6 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) or the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) (including 5 double hired academicians),

2 chief scientists of National 973 Program,

3 scholars awarded the National Distinguished Youth Foundation,

3 distinguished professors and 1 visiting chair professor involved in the National Chang Jiang Scholars Program,

2 scholars elected in the National Ten Thousand Talents Program,

1 scholar elected as the National Thousand Talents,

2 scholar awarded the National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation by NSFC,

1 scholar elected in the National Youth Talent Support Program,

11 awardees of New Century Excellent Talents Support Program of MOE,

13 candidates of New Star of Beijing Science and Technology Plan,

and 3 national outstanding scientific and technical workers.

 For the present, the institute has employed 125 staff members, of whom 83 are full-time faculties (including 37 professors and 31 associate professors), 30 are experimental technicians, and 12 are administration staff. Besides, there are 779 postgraduate students in the IAMT, including 294 PhD candidates and 15 post doctors.