Academic, industrial and international researchers can access the center through its user program for both nonproprietary and proprietary research. Access is provided at no cost to users for research that is in the public domain and intended for publication.

As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded research center, the CNM is at the forefront of discovery science that addresses national grand challenges encompassing the topics of energy, information, materials and the environment. The scientific strategy of the CNM unites three crosscutting and interdependent scientific themes that collectively aim at the discovery and integration of materials across different length scales studied at the extremes of temporal, spatial and energy resolutions. CNM staff scientists drive these scientific themes through their own research programs as well as work with the CNM user community.