Now open: 2021 National University Wood Challenge

 

The Australian Government, through the National Forest Industries Plan, Growing a Better Australia – A Billion Trees for Jobs and Growth and in conjunction with Forest & Wood Products Australia, has launched the 2021 National University Wood Challenge. The challenge will award grants, of up to $20,000, to each finalist team. The grants will be used to fund the building, testing and prototyping of valuable and innovative products created from wood and wood fibre residue.

The challenge is aimed to identify pathways toward smarter use and value adding of our forest resources and to enhance community understanding of forestry. Within the Australian forest industry, there is a high volume of ‘lower value’ fibre that has great potential to be converted into high value products once market demand can be generated.

The challenge hopes to identify and support teams of university students and academics across a range of disciplines, in order to increase the diversity of ideas and products proposed. Each team must have at least one member of the university’s academic staff and at least one student with a maximum of five team members, from the same university.

The grant funding will support the finalist team’s initiative to create a novel and innovative product that will provide value, in the global setting. The entries will be judged by a panel comprising the Chairs from each of the current National Institute for Forest Product Innovation centres. The winning team will be announced in November with an additional $10,000 in prize money to further develop their proposed prototype or project.

Entries Close: July 25, 2021
Finalists announced: August 10, 2021
Prototypes to be submitted: October 31, 2021
Learn more here