Industry Partnerships
FER Home : Research : Industry Partnerships
FER works closely with industry partners on a variety of on-going initiatives — an advantage for students seeking instruction in cutting-edge forestry and environmental resource management techniques.
Current partnerships include:
Camcore, a non-profit, international program that works for the conservation of tropical and subtropical forest tree species. Camcore works around the world with industry partners to identify threatened species and collect seeds from them for use in conservation and growth studies, assess genetic diversity to improve methods of conservation, evaluate the adaptability of trees to new locations and develop long-term improvement programs for ensuring the sustainability of resources.
The North Carolina State University Forest Biotechnology Industrial Research Consortium (FORBIRC), which promotes innovation and advances in forest, wood and paper science using the most advanced forest biotechnology. FORBIRC is a collaborative platform involving leading forest products industry participants worldwide and NC State University. Its mission is to integrate genome technology, metabolic engineering, traditional tree breeding and wood and paper science into a research organization focused on creating superior wood as a raw material and as a product.
Forest Nutrition Cooperative, a joint venture with Virginia Tech founded in 1969 that conducts applied research on forest nutrition, primarily as it relates to pine and eucalyptus species in the South, Argentina, Chile and Columbia. Participating members own and manage over 20 million acres of pine plantations in the southern United States plus 3 million acres of pine and eucalyptus plantations in South America.
The Southern Forest Resource Assessment Consortium (SOFAC), a research and application group that works to improve analysis and modeling of the effects of biological, economic, and social information for regional forestry decision-making. Its objective is to sustain and enhance economic and environmental benefits generated by forests through economically efficient and environmentally acceptable forest management. SOFAC's models can be used to analyze wood mill supply, develop strategic plans, perform state and regional economic development analysis and assess regional investment possibilities.
Tree Improvement Cooperative (TIP), a 50-year old initiative involving industry leaders who are committed to on-going research into forest genetics, selection, breeding and testing and technology transfer in an effort to increase forest productivity within the Southeast timber region. TIP is responsible for some of the most significant breakthroughs in forestry over the past half century and it continues to lead the way in developing new and more effective productivity and breeding improvement techniques.
