Preface to the Special Issue on “Advanced Application of Electromagnetic Force to Materials Processing”

This special issue of ISIJ International has been published to open the research results of "the Research Group on Advanced Application of Electromagnetic and Magnetization Forces to Materials Processing".This research group was established in 1999 under the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan and went into action to extend the area of EPM (Electromagnetic Processing of Materials) during 4 years.It constituted the basis of practical research-es gathering 19 members from universities, 4 from national institutes, 18 from companies including steelmaking, electric and heavy industries.Foreign members from China (3) and Korea (2) also joined this group.The major activity of the research group was performed by holding regular meetings three times per year to exchange the knowledge among group members.Special lectures were often made especially to get new knowledge on the application of in-