The Institute for Multidisciplinary Innovation (IMI) was founded in early 2016. It is a "special talent zone" created by the University of Science and Technology Beijing to accelerate the pace of constructing a first-class domestic and internationally renowned high-level research university, to build an independent innovation platform for high-end talents, to establish a support system for high-end talent innovation, and to improve its high-end talent guarantee service system.

As a "special talent zone", IMI is focusing on the introduction and cultivation of international high-level talents and the nurture of international frontier scientific research directions. It enjoys full autonomy in scientific research and its own development, and carries out various tasks independently. IMI adheres to the philosophy of academic supremacy and devotes to maximizing the creativity and the leading role of well-known scholars and scientific researchers. It aims at international frontier fields of scientific research, with efforts to establish a world-class scientific research base which gathers world-class experts and scholars, strives to foster major original innovations and cultivates high-end young and middle-aged talents.

IMI has established several research centers, each of which has a six-year construction period. Each research center has a Director who is the Chief Scientist in its research direction. There can be several research groups in each center, and a leader for each group who leads the members to carry out their scientific research under the leadership of the Center Director (Chief Scientist).The Center Director (Chief Scientist) enjoys adequate autonomy in team building, personnel recruitment, research direction, resource distribution, research expenditure, interior management, etc. IMI adopts flexible methods to attract different levels and types of talents and has an employment system which involves long-term employment, short-term employment and short-term cooperation, with a policy of limited employment period, target assessment, and merit-based retaining.

Currently IMI has 6 research centers, including the Center for Green Innovation, the Center for Composite Materials & Structural Engineering, the Research Group of Electromagnetic Metallurgy, the Group of Novel Magnetic Functional Materials and Applications, the Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials, and the Interdisciplinary Energy and Environmental Nanomaterials, which cover many preponderant and basic disciplines, such as materials, metallurgy, physics, chemistry, and so on.