In the USA, Sonoco Products has made a $2.5M gift to launch the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics at Clemson University, in South Carolina.
The proposed institute will provide resources for students in packaging, printing and allied fields. Its research work will cover: research, testing and product development; training; student and faculty projects; and short courses and special programmes. The institute will promote consumer and environmentally superior packaging design development, printing-imaging technologies and printing-packaging systems “to enhance the reusability, traceability and sustainability of paperboard, film and corrugated paperboard packages”.
"Sonoco has been a long standing friend of Clemson," says university president Jim Barker. "This gift creates an extraordinary investment in education, research and service to a high tech industry."
The funds will help to pay for construction of a facility to house components of the institute, and there are commitments of gifts-in-kind for technology support of the institute. The institute will be self sustaining with revenue derived from activities.
This gift is not Sonoco's first to the university. In 1992 it provided $500,000 to establish the Sonoco Packaging Science Laboratory .
"We understand the value of a research university partnership," says company president and ceo Harris E DeLoach Jr. "Preparing the next generation of packaging and graphics professionals is vital. Research drives change and we have to be able to change to compete more effectively. We are changing the way the world sees packaging; changing the way the world sees us."
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