Centers and Cooperatives
When we all work together, we create a bigger impact on the world around us. The College of Natural Resources regularly teams up with community and business leaders, policymakers, educators, students and members of the general public to ensure that our research is making a difference to both the public and private sectors. Through cooperatives, consortia, centers and institutions, we collaborate to create solutions to real-world issues.
Cooperatives
Tree Improvement Cooperative
The NC State Cooperative Tree Improvement Program within the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources provides vital research and improved tree genetics to landowners, foresters, forest companies, and the forest products industry. Research is an integral component of the cooperative, which provides new tools to supplement traditional tree breeding methods with advanced biological, chemical and data analysis research technologies.
Forest Productivity Cooperative (FPC)
An international partnership with Virginia Tech and Universidad de Conceptión in Chile, the Forest Productivity Cooperative brings together experts in silviculture, forest nutrition, ecophysiology, soils, plant community ecology, growth and yield modeling, remote sensing, spatial analysis and GIS, and statistics to creates innovative solutions to enhance forest productivity and value through the sustainable management of site resources.
Central America and Mexico Coniferous Resources Cooperative (Camcore)
An international organization dedicated to the conservation of tropical and subtropical trees, Camcore demonstrates that the private sector, in collaboration with government agencies and universities, can make substantial contributions to environmental stewardship and conservation, while providing economically sound forest management. By collecting seeds in threatened forest stands and planting them on members’ land in more protected areas with similar climates in countries around the world, members establish field trials to determine the productivity of different forest species. The program has one of the largest databases on tropical and subtropical pines in the world.
Christmas Tree Research and Extension Programs
Christmas Tree Genetics Cooperative and Christmas Tree Research and Extension Programs at NC State improve the growth, quality and pest resistance of Christmas tree species important to North Carolina, including Fraser fir, Virginia pine, Eastern white pine and Eastern red cedar. The programs also screen new species and conduct genetic conservation efforts for Fraser fir, a globally threatened species.
Consortia
Southern Forest Resource Assessment Consortium (SOFAC)
The Southern Forest Resource Assessment Consortium (SOFAC) develops forest sector market models for application to forest resource assessments in the South, U.S., and the World. SOFAC modelers and members will be able to use the SOFAC suite of models and research to simultaneously project timber inventory, supply, and prices for a variety of regions and a variety of timber products across the South. SOFAC will continue cooperative university-industry-public agency cooperation in southern and national forest sector economic modeling, enhancing graduate instruction in forest economics and modeling.
Sustainable and Alternative Fibers Initiative (SAFI)
Established in July 2021, the Sustainable and Alternative Fibers Initiative is the major global university-industry partnership effort focused on researching, developing, and utilizing alternative fibers to manufacture a myriad of sustainable products. Several challenges and uncertainties prevent the full-scale adoption of alternative fibers; those uncertainties relate to the perceived and real sustainability of fiber feedstock and its availability.
Centers and Institutions
Center for Geospatial Analytics
The Center for Geospatial Analytics is an interdisciplinary research and teaching center focused on data-driven spatial modeling and visualization for sustainable solutions to environmental and societal challenges. At the Center for Geospatial Analytics, everything is spatial, and location matters in science, society and decision-making processes.