The Department of Materials Engineering of IUT has made an outstanding record of success and prominence over the years in educational, research, and international scientific schemes, particularly in the field of steel, among other national universities. This state of prominence won the department the privilege to be accredited by the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology to serve as the Center of Excellence for Steel  (C.E.S.) over two consecutive terms from 2000 to 2009. Following a well definedplan of action, CES has directed its concentrated research, scientific, cultural, educational, and support service activities on steel toward innovation, new technologies, and knowledge generation. The underlying objective has been to achieve a superioracademic status at national, regional, and international levels while also responding toessential national demands by both academia and industry. Since its establishment in 2000, CES has, for instance, published 122 ISI journal papers, 46 research papers, 45 papers presented to international conferences, and 284 papers presented to nationalconferences. To these must be added the graduation of one post-doc and 67 MS and PhD students as well as the execution of 141 research projects, of which only the researchgrants/contracts with industry amounted to 14,485,849,000 Rials (approximately $ 1,600,000.00). In 2006 and 2007, the Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning evaluated CES’s records against the objectives defined for accreditation as acenter of excellence to identify CES as a superior engineering center of excellence among 33 such centers nationwide and four centers of excellence operating at Isfahan University of Technology.