There is a new focal point for cooperative research in advanced rock magnetism. The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has established an Institute for Rock Magnetism (IRM) that will provide free access to modern equipment and encourage visiting fellows to focus on important topics in rock magnetism and related interdisciplinary research. Funding for the first three years has been secured from the National Science Foundation, the W.M. Keck Foundation, and the University of Minnesota.In the fall of 1986, the Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism (GP) section of the AGU held a workshop at Asilomar, Calif., to pinpoint important and emerging research areas in paleomagnetism and rock magnetism, and the means by which to achieve them. In a report of this workshop published by the AGU in September 1987, two urgent needs were set forth. The first was for interdisciplinary research involving rock magnetism, and mineralogy, petrology, sedimentology, and the like. The second need was to ease the access of rock magnetists and paleomagnetists around the country to the latest equipment in modern magnetics technology, such as magneto‐optics or electronoptics. Three years after the publication of the report, we announced the opening of these facilities at the GP section of the AGU Fall 1990 Meeting. A classified advertisement inviting applications for visiting fellowships was published in the January 22, 1991, issue of Eos.