Abstract: National research institutes are the important part of national innovation system, which are more strategic, pioneering, and global. National research institutes are not only the source of enterprise technological innovation, but also the important driving force to promote technology commercialization. National research institutes undertake basic research and key core technologies related to the country’s strategic needs, and shoulder the important mission of promoting technology commercialization. Technology commercialization is the core of scientific & technological management, which is the key link of applying scientific research achievements to social and economic development and creating economic value. In addition, technology commercialization can expand market, create products, and meet the needs of the people. Technology commercialization has always been a global problem. Promoting the successful transformation of a new product or technology is an urgent issue which needs to consider. Because of the special status, national research institutes play the important role in the industrialization and commercialization of scientific research achievements. Therefore, under the current situation, how national research institutes promote technology commercialization has become an important issue that needs to be solved urgently. Nowadays, national research institutes play an increasingly important role in promoting technology commercialization. Scholars have deeply discussed many aspects of technology commercialization, such as influential factors, incentive mechanism, intellectual property rights, and legal policies. The existing research on national research institutes mainly focuses on governance reform, successful practice, operation mechanism, and interest subjects. However, these studies mainly focus on technology commercialization between universities and enterprises, thus ignoring the important role of national research institutes in technology commercialization. There is thus no specific link between technology commercialization and national research institutes. The existing research mainly focuses on qualitative description, but empirical discussions are insufficient. Previous studies have brought national research institutes and technology commercialization into the analysis framework. In general, the existing research has not been able to answer the important question of how national research institutes promote technology commercialization in the context of China. Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) closely combines with the international trend of science and technology development and national innovation-driven development needs, which forms a scientific layout of material application chain, scientific research and technology chain, talent training, and introduction chain. The NIMTE has provided strong scientific and technological support for the development of manufacturing industry and material industry in Ningbo city, Zhejiang Province, and even the Yangtze River Delta region, and has provided significant support for the national strategic scientific and technological force. This study takes the NIMTE as the study object, and deeply explores important paths for national research institutes to promote technology commercialization. The research results show that: integrating the multiple superior resources around the country, market, and innovation needs; creating a sound institutional ecosystem that is fair, just, open, and shared by all; building a multilevel and multi-angle three-dimensional cooperative network; breaking through the whole value chain transformation channel of “research-results-product-market-industrial” competitive advantages; focusing on technology readiness level to customize the transformation mode of technology commercialization; and constructing a multi-stakeholder community of government, industry, universities, institutes, and society are important paths for national research institutes to promote technology commercialization. The main theoretical contributions of this study are as follows: First, the existing research ignores the important role of national research institutes in technology commercialization. This study deeply discusses important paths for national research institutes to promote technology commercialization, thus enriching the relevant research on technology commercialization. Second, the current study has not yet incorporated national research institutes and technology commercialization into a unified analytical framework. This study deeply explores the key paths to promote technology commercialization in national research institutes and puts forward the corresponding theoretical propositions, thereby making up for the deficiency of relevant research in national research institutes to a certain extent. The main practical implications of this study are as follows: First, national research institutes should closely link the needs of the country with the needs of the market, promote the construction of a multilevel and multi-angle three-dimensional cooperative network, and gather and integrate innovative resources. Second, national research institutes should innovate the transformation mechanism of technology commercialization, promote the formation of a sound institutional ecosystem that is fair, just, open, and shared by all, and fully stimulate the enthusiasm and motivation of researchers. Third, national research institutes should accelerate to break through the whole value chain transformation channel, build a multi-stakeholder community of government, industry, universities, institutes, and society, and choose the suitable transformation mode based on the technology readiness level. Besides, this study enriches previous research on technology commercialization and national research institutes, and has directive significance to the practice of promoting technology commercialization in national research institutes.