The Paper Province is owned and operated by a hundred member companies. All the major equipment suppliers, a quarter of the Swedish pulp and paper mills and a number of small and medium-sized suppliers are joined together in this cluster.
The purpose with The Paper Province is to coordinate interaction with players in the paper and pulp technology cluster in Värmland, northern Dalsland and Örebro. And the proximity to raw materials, modern infrastructure and a central location in Northern Europe makes a perfect foundation.
It all started 1999. The formation of The Paper Province network was a way to bring together local businesses operating in the pulp and paper industry, with customers, suppliers, dealers, consultants and other service providers. In the beginning the aim was to help promote the region and support the development through skills.
But today, 15 years later, the Paper Province repeatedly is compared with the American film cluster Hollywood.
According to Mats Williams, former ceo, The Paper province, it is a good example of a region when it manages to collect a significant amount of players within an industry and get them to work together, it attracts interested talents and companies from around the world. A cluster that generates an attractive force which can not be ignored when it comes to being one of the key geographic areas for a specific industry.
Competition
Obviously the forest industry is an important industry and resource in the region. And one of the main reasons for why the region’s pulp, paper and packaging industry is so strong is that to remain competitive, companies have invested about 1 billion every year for the past 12 years, both in personnel and technology.
For example the Paper province organize a competition together with the industry and research in the region to find a way how to use the low-grade energy in the effluents from the pulp and paper industry.
– Forest industry production heats today up large amounts of water. A large portion exploited already. But not all, and certainly not that part with a bit lower temperature. However, we would like to see that this part could be useful , says Angelika Klarenfjord Communications officer The Paper Province.
The competition is funded by VINNOVA, Sweden’s innovation agency. Their mission is to promote sustainable growth by improving the conditions for innovation and financeoriented research.
– We have organized workshops at the participating mills in the region and at Karlstad University, where participants in the competition could get further inspiration for an idea, says Angelika Klarenfjord.
The winner is chosen by a jury and the winning entry receives support to further develop the idea.
– A winner is already chosen but it’s not official yet. But it’s confirmed that the winner will join us to the PulPaper conference in Helsinki, says Angelika Klarenfjord.
The goal of the innovation contest is to create new applications that will make use of energy, add value and engage businesses, students and the public in the larger issue; how do we together create a sustainable forest-based bio-economy?
Bioeconomy
Bioeconomy is a new and much bigger project at The Paper Province, with focus towards becoming a large-scale testbed for forest-based bioeconomy.
The bioeconomy encompasses the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy via innovative and efficient technologies provided by Industrial Biotechnology. It is already a reality and one that offers great opportunities and solutions to a growing number of major societal, environmental and economic challenges, including climate change mitigation, energy and food security and resource efficiency.
Bioeconomy is a rapidly developing research area that was pointed out in the last Swedish research bill as an important future area for the Swedish society and industry.
VINNOVA has granted the Paper Province 130 millions SEK for this project.
