New AI-assisted system helps R&D teams explore technologies beyond their existing domains and identify new research themes
OKAYAMA, Japan — 2026/10/5 — Mindware Research Institute, Inc. today announced the Early Access Program for ConceptMiner R&D, an AI-assisted concept exploration system designed to help research and development teams discover new technical possibilities beyond the boundaries of their existing fields.
Many technology intelligence systems are effective at collecting, organizing, and analyzing information that is already known to be relevant. However, identifying genuinely new R&D themes often requires a different kind of exploration: finding technologies, mechanisms, structures, and problem-solving patterns in fields that researchers would not normally search.
ConceptMiner R&D is designed for this type of cross-domain exploration.
The system combines large language models with concept extraction, semantic analysis, clustering, and structural mapping to support the exploration of technologies across papers, patents, technical documents, and other information sources. Rather than relying only on conventional keyword searches, ConceptMiner R&D helps researchers formulate broader questions and search for analogous mechanisms or technical principles across different industries and scientific disciplines.
For example, a researcher investigating self-healing materials may not only search for existing self-healing polymers or composites. ConceptMiner R&D can expand the inquiry to mechanisms such as repeated material transport, distributed repair networks, biological circulation systems, autonomous replenishment, and other structurally related solutions found in different domains.
The objective is not to ask AI to invent a new technology automatically. Instead, ConceptMiner R&D is intended to help researchers discover relevant knowledge that already exists outside their usual field of view and use it as a basis for new hypotheses, combinations, and research themes.
The approach builds on Mindware Research Institute’s work on Concept Exploration, a research methodology the company has developed since the 1990s. The methodology distinguishes concept exploration from conventional fact-finding: instead of only asking where known information can be found, it focuses on how unfamiliar but potentially relevant knowledge can be identified.
ConceptMiner R&D is currently being developed as a practical system for corporate R&D and technology management. The Early Access Program will work with selected organizations to test the system on real-world R&D challenges, refine its exploration workflow, and evaluate how cross-domain concept exploration can complement existing technology intelligence and research processes.
Potential applications include:
- discovery of new R&D themes;
- exploration of alternative technical mechanisms;
- identification of technologies transferable from other industries;
- combination of existing technologies in new ways;
- analysis of adjacent and emerging technical fields;
- generation and comparison of research hypotheses.
Mindware Research Institute intends ConceptMiner R&D to remain vendor-neutral and interoperable with existing technology intelligence, patent analysis, and knowledge management environments.
“R&D teams already have access to more information than they can read,” said Kunihiro Tada, President of Mindware Research Institute. “The problem is no longer simply how to collect more information. The more difficult question is how to discover useful knowledge in areas that researchers do not yet know they should be looking at. ConceptMiner R&D is being developed to support that process.”
Organizations interested in participating in the ConceptMiner R&D Early Access Program can contact Mindware Research Institute for further information.
About Mindware Research Institute
Mindware Research Institute, Inc. is a Japan-based research and software company focused on data analysis, concept exploration, artificial intelligence, and technology intelligence. The company has worked on analytical software and research methods for more than two decades and is currently developing tools to support cross-domain R&D exploration and knowledge discovery.
Media Contact
Mindware Research Institute, Inc.
Okayama, Japan
info@conceptminer.ai
www.conceptminer.ai
