Director-General Dr. Yuji ENOMOTO

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　　The National Industrial Research Institute of Nagoya (NIRIN) is one of fifteen national institutes which belong to the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). In order to play an important technological role on establishment of sustainable growth of the society, the NIRIN aims to develop new functional materials and their processing technologies based on creative research activities.

　　NIRIN, formerly named as the Government Industrial Research Institute of Nagoya (GIRIN), has been established in 1952 by combining three research institutes: the Pottery & Porcelain Institute in Kyoto, founded in 1919, the Nagoya branch of Government Chemical Industrial Research Institute, Tokyo (now National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research), founded in 1943, and the Nagoya Branch of Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, founded in 1944. At present, the headquarters of NIRIN is located at Kita-ku in Nagoya city and Seto branch of NIRIN in Seto city. On April 2001, the fifteen institutes under AIST will be unified to National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (new AIST), which includes 2,500 researchers, and NIRIN will play a part as the Chubu site of AIST. On autumn of 2001, T the Chubu site will move from Kita-ku, Nagoya to a new place of 'Human Science Park', at Shidami which is located in a north-eastern district of Nagoya.

　Present research activities are focused on synthesis of highly functional materials such as (1) ceramics having synergetic structure, (2) 'super metal' having nano-scale grains, (3) ceramics for clearing environmental pollution, (4) bio-ceramics, (5) ceramics showing super plasticity, (6) oxide materials for electronic use, (7) materials related to energy, (8) light metallic materials, (9) functional materials embedded in nano-sized metal-semiconductor clusters, etc. In order to synthesize above-mentioned materials, we are going to develop innovative fabrication processing of materials (so-called "concerto processing") by simultaneous controlling of processing time, space and reaction field. We believe those R&D works contribute to creating a new paradigm of production engineering in the 21st century.