The Collaborative Innovation Center of Steel Technology (CICST) was established with two metallurgical universities, University of Science and Technology Beijing and Northeastern University, as the core, and jointly with domestic leading enterprises, such as Baosteel, Anshan Iron & Steel, WISCO and Shougang, as well as research institutes, such as the Steel Research Group and the Institute of Metals of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as universities and colleges, such as Shanghai University and Wuhan University of Science and Technology. The center was formally recognized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance in October 2014 and included in the national "2011 plan", becoming one of the 38 collaborative innovation centers in China.
In May 2022, China launched a new round of construction program for Collaborative Innovation Center. Facing the development needs of greening strategic transformation of the iron and steel industry, the CICST takes major collaborative innovation tasks as its traction and "green manufacturing, green manufacturing" as its goal, focusing on two major collaborative innovation tasks, namely, "research and development of key common processes and equipments, and development of high-end products for major projects". The CICST focuses on two major collaborative innovation tasks, namely "key common process and equipment research and development, and high-end product development for major projects", to carry out systematic innovation of process, equipment and products, to enhance the independent innovation capability of the industry, and to solve the problems of resources, energy, environment and product quality faced by the steel industry. The CICST practices the collaborative innovation operation mode of "one goal, one task, one team, one mechanism", integrates the advantages of multiple disciplines and teams, gathers all kinds of innovative resources, carries out in-depth and systematic research on key common technologies and their transformation and application, and endeavors to build a world-class research and development and application highland of key common technologies in iron and steel, so as to contribute to the development of the national economy and the transformation of the iron and steel industry.
In the area of "green manufacturing", eight key common technologies in the iron and steel industry have been condensed, and innovative technological ideas and production equipment have been put forward to realize reduced iron and steel production that saves resources and energy, saves energy and reduces emissions, is environmentally friendly, and has excellent product performance, reduces production costs, taps the potential of steel, and realizes the "green manufacturing of iron and steel". In the area of "manufacturing green", the company scientifically implements the design of reduced iron and steel materials, adopts cutting-edge theories and technologies such as clean preparation and whole-process product quality assurance, carries out green product development and intelligent manufacturing, independently innovates new high-performance and reduced iron and steel materials, and develops green steel materials urgently needed by emerging industries such as the ocean, transportation, and energy industries, so as to realize the goal of " manufacturing green".