This volume, SCIENCE OF SINTERING: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR MATERIALS PROCESSING AND MICROSTRUCTURAL CONTROL, contains the edited Proceedings of the Seventh World Round Table Conference on Sintering, held in Herceg-Novi, Yugoslavia, Aug. 28 - Sept. 1, 1989. It was organized by the International Institute for the Science of Sintering (IISS), headquartered in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Every fourth year since 1969, the Institute has organized such a Round Table Conference on Sintering; each has taken place at some selected location within Yugoslavia. A separate series of IISS Topical Sintering Symposia (Summer Schools) have also been held at four year intervals, but they have been offset by about two years, so they occur between the main Conferences. As a rule, the Topical Sintering Symposia have been devoted to more specific topics and they also take place in different countries. The aim of these Conferences and their related "Summer Schools" has been to bring together scientists from all over the world who work in various fields of science and technology concerned with sintering and sintered materials. A total of seven IISS Conferences have been held over the period 1969-1989, and they have been supplemented by the four Topical Sintering Symposia held in Yugoslavia, Poland, India and Japan (in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1987, respectively). This most recent five day Conference addressed the fundamental scientific background as well as the technological state-of-the-art pertinent to science of sintering and high technology sintered materials.