The American Forest & Paper Association or AF&PA (Washington D.C., USA) joined the International Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA) in presenting three young scientists with 2019 Blue Sky Young Researchers and Innovation Awards at the ICFPA-hosted international CEO Roundtable, a biennial gathering of forest product company and association leaders last week in Vancouver, Canada.

The theme of the international competition was future generation forestry and innovation in the wood fiber-based industry. These issues are timely as the world seeks sustainable and renewable alternatives to packaging, fuel and materials.

2019 Blue Sky Young Researchers and Innovation Award Winners:

• Chinmay Satam Georgia Institute of Technology, United States – Multi‐layer chitin nanofiber cellulose nanocrystal-based films for sustainable barrier applications
• Elina Pääkkönen VTT, the Technical Research Center of Finland – How to replace non-renewable packaging material?
• Martin Wierzbicki University of Pretoria, South Africa – Genome-based biotechnology for designer wood

The competition – now its second round – invites submissions from aspiring scientists and young engineers who are developing novel solutions using wood fiber, process improvements or other innovations along the forestry-pulp-paper value chain.

A jury of experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), forest-based company Metsä Spring and research institutes from New Zealand and Canada evaluated the submissions against several criteria: compliance with the overall theme, level of innovation, quality of the abstract, clarity of the results, capacity to solve industry challenges and ambitions, as well as probability of implementation and upscaling.

AF&PA is a founding member of the ICFPA, which represents 18 national and regional forest and paper associations that encompass 28 countries as well as the top global pulp, paper and wood producers. For more information about the global forest and paper industry and the Blue Sky Young Researchers and Innovation Award, visit icfpa.org.