"Bringing together players from industry and academia to exchange ideas and initiate innovations based on raw material from the forests, that is the purpose of ForestBeyond," says Innventia’s Pia Wågberg. She is the project manager in the VINNOVA and RISE funded project which held its second major event at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm last week.
"Our ambition is to create an interactive forum where participants can benefit from each other’s different skills and our annual events is the arena where this can be done. However, it should be noted that a follow-up of the event is required and this occurs in various ways to ensure that activeties do not stop at discussion."
A year ago, ForestBeyond held a first pilot event to explore and test how the idea of an interactive meeting place can work in reality. The result was good and pointed out the way for this year’s event, which focused on construction materials from the forest.
A large number of industry representatives, researchers and innovative partners and entrepenours were invited and the event was very well attended. In the afternoon, four workshops were held where a number of concrete cases from the engineering industry was processed (the companies themselves had contributed with the cases and were responsible for the presentations).
Bombardier, for example, searched for a material that can replace fiberglass insulation in a train. What opportunities are there within cellulose-based materials? Rotstein Architects were looking for a noise-isolating materials for public spaces. It may well be a living material that is combined with vegetation to absorb noise. Also Camfil, ABB, Ecolution Composites, Husqvarna and Alfa Laval participated with other materials-related challenges. The goal of the day was that at least a couple of ideas from the workshops should lead to projects with multi-skilled participants.
The day began with a discussion on the incentives for a shift to renewable materials, and how a technology change can be brought about. Eric Giertz from KTH Executive School gave a talk about how technology changes occur again and again after a similar pattern and how it is that firms and businesses go under because of them.
Roger Rowell, Professor at the University of Madison in the U.S., provided a picture of the forest-based research conducted around the KTH campus. With slides from KTH, YKI and Innventia as a base, he talked about the importance of thinking outside the conventional framework to meet the future. He also presented strategies for industry and academia to be able to meet in a fruitful way.
