PROVINCE, UBC FINDING MORE WAYS TO USE, PROTECT WOOD

March 17, 2009 - VANCOUVER – A partnership between the Province and the University of B.C. is enabling one of the world’s top wood scientists to develop cutting-edge manufacturing technology that will help B.C.’s forest products industry compete in the global economy, Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell announced today.

Philip Evans has been named the B.C. Leadership Chair in Advanced Forest Products Manufacturing Technology. Before coming to UBC in 2001, he was director of the Centre for Science and Engineering of Materials at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“Government understands the importance of funding research that will help B.C.’s forest products industry compete effectively in an increasingly tough worldwide market,” said Bell, who made the announcement on behalf of Ida Chong, Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development. “Through the Leading Edge Endowment Fund, we’re making sure Dr. Evans’s world-class research skills stay in B.C. to develop our value-added wood products.”

Evans’s research focuses on the structure and properties of wood at the macroscopic, microscopic and nanoscopic levels. He works with universities and corporations around the world on
novel technologies for modifying and improving the properties of wood, as well as with B.C. communities that have relied on mills and are diversifying their economies. He was director of UBC’s Centre for Advanced Wood Processing – the world’s largest university-based centre for R&D and education related to value-added wood processing – from 2001 to 2006.

“For more than 80 years, the UBC faculty of forestry has contributed new knowledge and technology to support a sustainable forest industry in British Columbia,” said John Hepburn, vicepresident research at UBC. “The Province’s support through this LEEF chair will bolster our ongoing partnership to effectively manage B.C.’s valuable forest resources and maintain a leading role in the increasingly competitive global marketplace.”

Evans’s accomplishments include developing image software that can pick out cracks in timber and distinguish them from similar markings – such as annual growth rings – saving researchers the time-consuming job of counting the cracks by hand. This, along with a machine he developed to speed up cracking, is accelerating the process of finding treatments to prevent wood from weathering. He is also conducting groundbreaking research into new materials that mimic key structural elements found in wood.

“A better understanding of wood will help us to unlock the hidden potentials of this important natural resource to B.C. and the world,” said Evans. “It also provides us with new opportunities to maximize the economic benefits while protecting our environment.”

The Province provided $2.25 million to endow the chair permanently through its $56.25- million Leading Edge Endowment Fund, established in 2002. Funding for LEEF is part of $1.7 billion committed to research and innovation in B.C. since 2001, which has leveraged another $1 billion in research funding from other sources.

“This LEEF chair will help create jobs for the B.C. economy by encouraging the use of more B.C. wood for such things as decks and house siding,” said Chong, who is responsible for research in B.C. “The bonus, environmentally speaking, is that wood requires far less fossil fuel to process than metal, plastic and concrete – so Dr. Evans’s research is also helping us tackle climate change.”

The provincial contribution was matched by funds from FPInnovations, UBC and forest sector supporters like Viance LLC, a leading producer of wood preservatives and coatings with branches in the United States, England and Finland. Evans has worked with Viance and other chemical companies for 15 years on wood treatments.

“Through this LEEF chair appointment, Dr. Evans’s broad expertise will be directed at addressing issues of significant consequence to the future use of wood products,” said Pierre Lapointe, president and CEO of FPInnovations, a Canadian not-for-profit forest research institute. “We are optimistic that the leading-edge work Dr. Evans is doing around physical and chemical surface treatments of wood will lead to commercialization to new markets for B.C. producers of fine wood products.”

The Leading Edge Endowment Fund is establishing 20 leadership chairs, as well as nine regional innovation chairs, to attract top researchers to B.C.’s universities and colleges, and to keep them here. The B.C. Leadership Chair in Advanced Forest Products Manufacturing Technology is the 17th chair announced to date, and the first in the technology area. UBC has already been awarded five other chairs for spinal cord, prostate cancer, depression, addictions and early childhood education research.

Editors: B-roll and photographs are available at www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/download.

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