Center for Advanced Ceramic Technology, Alfred University, Alfred, New York, USA

The dawning, in the world of technology, of the Age of Advanced Materials has led to a search for new ways of establishing research programmes capable of meeting the increased demand for materials. The State of New York, foreseeing the extent of the requirement for technological research in the 1990s, established the programme for Centers of Advanced Technology (CATs) primarily as a means of fostering economic development. Ten CATs and seven years later, New York's high technology research programme provides a model for workable partnerships between government, industry and academe.