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Industry progress for wood products research has been sporadic and incremental. Research has increased at a slower rate than other major industry segments. To reverse this trend, efforts are currently underway to better define and coordinate high-impact research that will result in product and process "breakthroughs" for the industry. Through the American Forest & Paper Association's Agenda 2020 process, these goals will someday become reality.
Forest products is one of nine energy-intensive industries that are collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) in a research and development (R&D) program called "Industries of the Future." The program creates partnerships between industry, government, and supporting laboratories and institutions to accelerate the research, development, and deployment of new technologies. These technologies are aimed at cutting energy use, minimizing environmental impacts, and improving productivity in industry. Industry drives the process by creating a strategic vision of the future and technology roadmaps that establish more detailed R&D priorities. OIT serves as a facilitator by encouraging industry to undertake long-term technology planning and by sharing the costs of research.
In late 1994, the forest products industry entered into this partnership with the Department of Energy. A vision of the industry in the year 2020 was created. Known as Agenda 2020, the vision establishes long-term goals and broad research priorities for the forest products industry and provides the touchstone used in guiding program activities.
Since its inception, Agenda 2020 has steadily increased the amount of support and resources provided for research - expanding from $5 million to $50 million per year. While funding for the pulp and paper side of the industry has overshadowed research for wood products, the 2002 formation of a new Agenda 2020 Wood and Wood Composites Task Group is a clear indication that the industry and the Department of Energy are serious about changing that inequity.
OIT provides cost-shared funding of up to 80 percent for forest products R&D projects that address the research priorities defined by the industry. All awards are based on a competitive process open to collaborative teams, including producers, suppliers, universities, national government laboratories, research institutes, and others. The Agenda 2020 Wood and Wood Composites Task Group coordinates industry participation. Official solicitations - better known as Requests for...