RETAIL PROJECT GETS $650,000
By Adnews Staff
Two federally funded councils are kicking in a total of $650,000 for a research project that may be academic but has real meaning for the down-and-dirty world of retailing. The research comes under the umbrella of the Eaton Chair in Retailing at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. The new project is called the Eaton/SSHRC/NSERC Chair in the Management of Technological Change in Retailing, reflecting grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Researchers will gather data with the aim of helping retailers do better business. The chair will create an electronic retail resource centre, develop training programs, and look around the world for "the best practices in retailing education," says a release. The chair will be jointly occupied by two professors: Ken Jones of Ryerson and Michael Pearce of the Western Business School at The University of Western Ontario.
The Eaton chair was established last year with a seed grant of $500,000 from the Eaton Foundation. Eaton's of Canada also donated $125,000 to allow Ryerson to develop an educational CD-ROM dealing with retail merchandising and finance. The Eaton Chair is aimed at improving the Canadian retail industry through research, education and training provided by Ryerson and the Eaton School of Retailing.