Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM) was established in August 2012, and is the main body of the “Overseas Talent Buffer Base” of Nanjing Tech University. The IAM is led by Professor Huang Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with young scholars who are active in the forefront of international academia as the academic backbone, and all of its core members have experience of overseas research. The team brings together more than 120 outstanding scholars from world-class universities such as University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, Northwestern University, University of California, National University of Singapore, and Nanyang Technological University. At present, the IAM has set up four research institutes for organic optoelectronic materials, nano optoelectronic materials, bioelectronic materials and advanced energy materials, as well as two research & development centers for flexible electronic technologies and carbon-based energy technologies. Also, it has many provincial, higher-level and international joint research platforms, such as the Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (Flexible Electronics Research Department) (“2011 Program”), the State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Display, the National International Joint Research Center for Flexible Electronic Materials and Devices, the International Cooperation Joint Laboratory of Flexible Electronics, Ministry of Education, the National Innovation and Foreign Talent Introduction Base for Flexible Electronics (“111 Program”), Jiangsu Province Flexible Electronics Engineering Laboratory, the Cultivation and Construction Site of the State Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics), Jiangsu-Singapore Joint Research Center on Organic/Bio Electronics & Information Displays, and Jiangsu Province Flat Panel Display and Solid-State Lighting Engineering Center.

In recent years, the IAM has undertaken more than 260 research projects at and above provincial and ministerial levels, including the projects under the National “973” Program, National Key Research and Development Program, National Major Scientific Research Program Integration Project, National Major Scientific Instrument Development Project, and projects supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars. The IAM has published a series of original innovation achievements with a high degree of display in international top-ranking academic journals, including the Nature, Science, Nature Photonics, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Energy, Nature Electronics, and Nature Communications, which has helped the “Nature Index” of Nanjing Tech University climb rapidly, has become a high quality brand with great popularity at home and abroad, and has developed its significant features and international academic influence in the field of flexible electronics research. The IAM has published more than 990 SCI papers with Nanjing Tech University as the first unit, and applied for more than 400 public invention patents, with more than 140 authorized. The research achievements have successively won more than 10 national, provincial and ministerial level scientific and technological awards, such as the Second Prize of the National Award for Natural Science, the Award for Scientific and Technological Progress of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation, the First Prize of the Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education, the Second Prize of Jiangsu Province Award for Science and Technology, etc., as well as the First Prize of the Award for Optical Science and Technology of the Chinese Optical Society, the Excellent Prize of “Rao Yutai Basic Optics Award” and the Progress Prize of the Chambroad Technology Award, and other awards of important industrial societies. In addition, the research achievements have been selected for the rewards, such as Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances in China’s Higher Education Institutions, Ministry of Education.

The IAM has successively invited more than 100 experts and scholars to visit it, established several joint research centers in the field of flexible electronics with the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, University of St. Andrews in the UK, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, University of Zaragoza in Spain, Griffith University in Australia, University of Johannesburg in South Africa, etc., and collaborated with the Nature Publishing Group under the Springer Nature to publish the open access journal npj Flexible Electronics (npj-FE), held international academic conferences such as the Nature Flexible Electronics Symposium, and opened up several distinctive and high-level international cooperation carriers.

Facing the frontier of world science and technology, the main battlefield of economy, the major needs of the country, and people’s life and health, based on the frontier of flexible electronics, and by solving the key scientific problems in flexible electronics research, breeding disruptive technologies, and building a high-end science and technology think tank which is innovation-leading, relied on by the country, trusted by the society, and internationally well-known, the IAM simultaneously serves the major strategic needs of the country, the “Belt and Road” initiative and local economic development, forms the leading and demonstrating effect of a high-end innovation and entrepreneurship platform, supports the national science and technology strategy and industrial transformation development, realizes the lane-changing for overtaking and lane-opening for overtaking, builds the state key laboratory of flexible electronics and supporting platforms for the development and construction of relevant industries, and builds flagships for the research, innovation and creation of advanced materials in China. The team strives to promote the practice of institutional and cultural innovation in line with international standards, to build cutting-edge interdisciplinary innovation platforms and high-end talent distribution centers, to make explorations and contributions for China to implement the innovation-driven development strategy, improve the science and technology innovation system, build an intellectual property system, and optimize the layout of higher education development, and to contribute strength for accelerating the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-sufficiency and self-improvement, and making China become a major scientific center and innovation highland in the world.