**Preface to "Advanced Materials for Societal Implementation"**

Materials science is the fundamental basis for all engineering disciplines. From mechanical engineering to medical science, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering to information technology, every field requires knowledge and information about materials science and engineering. We can say that everything is a material. In Japan, the National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), one of the most prominent higher education organizations, started an extensive research project throughout the country. NIT KOSEN was the first established network in the islands of Japan. The 51 colleges of KOSEN are established across Japan, and they consolidated into one big organization almost 17 years ago. Now, it is actively pursuing an industrial–academia partnership to carry out joint experiments, develop collaboration products, and also to cultivate young engineers for the future through these joint projects. KOSEN started its new nationwide research project, called GEAR 5.0, in May 2020. This is basically a research and education project to train young students heading into industrial fields in KOSEN, so that they can adjust themselves to a new innovative society (Society 5.0 in Japan or Industry 4.0 in Germany) and can actively make significant contributions to these societies. In this large national project for KOSEN, certain main engineering disciplines were chosen, and their research hubs were established in particular areas. Currently, research activities are taking place to boost industrial and economic situations. Materials science and engineering are some of the critical disciplines selected for the GEAR 5.0 project.

In this Special Issue, we broadly called for papers relating to materials science and engineering, according to the philosophy of GEAR 5.0 project and KOSEN research. As mentioned above, topics of interest were not restricted to basic or conventional topics for materials science and engineering. We instead accepted papers dealing with versatile applications of materials science and engineering in various industrial fields. The call for papers was initially based on talks given at ISATE 2021, an international conference with a secretariat in Finland. However, this reprint is a compilation of papers published as a Special Issue of MDPI *Materials*, including, but not limited to, other papers that are oriented toward social implementation as the ultimate goal. The editors hope that this reprint will be used as a good example, a legend, and a textbook for social implementation of materials science.

#### **Hideyuki Kanematsu, Yoshikazu Todaka, and Takaya Sato** *Editors*
