The holding of the 11th World Conference on Titanium, 2007, and the establishment of the industry-academia collaboration committee, the foundation of the Titanium Research Grant for the young titanium researchers and engineers, and the exchange meeting for young titanium researchers and engineers of the Japan Titanium Society, which are thought to be the impetus for the establishment of the Japan Institute of Titanium (JITiT) are firstly described. Then, the establishment and launch of the JITiTi as well as the expectations for JITiT are described.

How the author started research and development of titanium alloys and the author’s subsequent development of research and development of titanium alloys over many years are described with hoping that it will be a reference for researchers and engineers who are about to start research and development of titanium alloys, or for researchers and engineers who have just started its research and development including topics.

The Japan Institute of Titanium (JITiT) was founded on April 20^th, 2021. The JITiT aims to promote the research and development of titanium and industry-academia collaboration by presenting research on the theory and application of titanium and its alloys, and by exchanging information among its members. The JITiT has already held two times lecture meetings on WEB based on this policy since been founded. Here after, it is expected that the JITiT would play big roles for creating the carbon neutral titanium rolled products producing process, reducing impurities or oxygen, iron, etc. from titanium scrap by reduction, and so on.

Titanium and its alloys have high relative strength, excellent corrosion resistance and good biocompatibility. However, though they are expensive, application fields of them are not extended. To extend application fields, low cost titanium and its alloy are developed actively. Developments of Ti-Cr-Fe-Al and Ti-Mn-Fe-Al system alloys are explained in this text. Ti-13mass%Cr-1mass%Fe-3mass%Al system alloys was developed as commercial use, because those alloy had good mechanical properties. Ti-10mass%Mn-1mass%Fe-3mass%Al alloy was selected as a candidate for commercial use.

Light elements such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen interact with Ti and its alloys during manufacturing processes and in usage environments. These elements exhibit high affinity and high solubility in Ti as well as being interstitially dissolved, abundant, and inexpensive. Interactions between Ti and light elements are related to the reduction and refining process, alloy and surface design, microstructural control, and other functions. Thus, understanding interactions is necessary for constructing a reasonable Ti production process and expanding applications. The recent progress in our group on the interaction between Ti and light elements, including the experimental and computational approaches for the high-temperature oxidation of Ti alloys, preparation and antibacterial-activity evaluation of visible-light-responsive photocatalytically active TiO₂ layers formed by the surface reactions of Ti, and oxygen removal (deoxidation) from Ti melts using hydrogen plasma, are reported in this paper.