The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has renewed its partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology's Printing Industry Center, awarding the center $250,000 over the next three years. The Printing Industry Center—a joint operation involving RIT's School of Print Media in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, and the College of Business—is a forum for printing companies and associations worldwide, addressing concerns in the printing industry through research initiatives and educational outreach. The center generates a pipeline of data and observations that flows between researcher and industry representatives. Industry partners pledge money to help fund the center's operations and advise RIT's researchers on topics critical to the printing industry. The industry partners are Adobe Systems Incorporated, Baldwin Technology Company, Inc., Creo Inc., RR Donnelley, Heidelberg, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM Printing Systems, MeadWestvaco Corp., NexPress Solutions, Inc., NPES, Standard Register, VIGC, Weyerhaeuser and Xerox Corp. RIT's Printing Industry Center will engage in a number of new research initiatives over the next three years including sourcing of print, insourcing versus outsourcing print services, and offshore outsourcing of printing. "The unifying theme for all these activities is to develop a deeper and more refined understanding of the form and dynamics of new business models and processes that are emerging as a result of the rapid advancement of digital technologies and the global spread of ubiquitous high-speed access to the Internet," says Pat Sorce, co-director of the Printing Industry Center and chair of RIT's School of Print Media. "The support of the Sloan Foundation and our industry partners has enabled RIT researchers to study the critical trends in the evolution of print as a complement and competitor to the Internet and then to disseminate what we learn to the industry in the form of published monographs, Web casts, electronic newsletters and numerous appearances at industry conferences and meetings," says Frank Cost, associate dean of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences and co-director of the Printing Industry Center. "In the coming year, the center will begin to co-publish a series of books with the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press. I have just completed work on the first book in the series, The New Medium of Print: Material Communication in the Internet Age, which comes out in June." The Sloan Industry Centers program began in 1990. RIT launched its center in 2001, joining a list of other prestigious universities hosting Sloan Industry Centers, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Columbia University. For more information on the RIT Printing Industry Center, visit print.rit.edu.