Background

There is now a strong and expanding UK home-based forest products and timber supply chain. The forestry industry will actively participate in this Project. It already contributes £1.3 billion to the economy in Scotland, with further large sums committed to harvesting, conversion, and manufacture, elsewhere in the UK. 

It employs more than 44,000 people, and has strategically "Clustered" itself, to promote further value addition, job creation and investment. The potential for timber as a structural engineering material is far from being realised. 

Significant synergies amongst researchers, professionals and the industry itself have already been generated, with the creation and marketing of innovative value-added products. Examples include webbed beams and panels, innovative laminates and novel connection systems. A Key Action Recommendation in "Roots for Growth" (SFIC Cluster Vision & Strategy Document) is to strengthen the design capabilities of present and future users. 

However, the new audience upon whom the future depends is not being inspired. Nor is it being given the design basis and the essential background knowledge. Furthermore, those who teach are not being encouraged with a readily adaptable resource. Improving and changing this situation is vital, to stimulate awareness and to feed the desire for knowledge amongst "Professionals of the Future."

Providing quality educational material at the desired levels, a timber design Teaching Package will be developed and handed over. This will give further contacts, both for teachers, for individual companies, and for students in their personal studies. 

Providing this "Unlocked Knowledge" will create opportunities for a more sustainable future, within a socially adept and efficient timber construction industry. 

Another major improvement that will be brought about will be to reverse the trend that every year sees fewer trained and experienced timber engineering teachers in place.

Project Presented & Developed By:

• TRADA Technology

with support & assistance from

• Imperial College of Science,Technology & Medicine
• University of Bath
• Queen’s University of Belfast
• University of Edinburgh
• Institution of Structural Engineers
• Institution of Civil Engineers
• Buro Happold
• Scottish Forest Industries Cluster
• Nordic Timber Council