The European Commission recognised the potential of the consortium of Slovene partners, led by the University of Primorska, and awarded it with a grant of almost 15 million Euros to establish the Renewable Materials and Healthy Environments Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence (InnoRenew CoE). The Government of the Republic of Slovenia added 30 million Euros of investment funding to boost development of the new research centre.

COST Action FP1407 announces call for Short Term Scientific Missions . Short-term scientific missions (STSM) are exchange visits between researchers involved in a COST Action, allowing scientists to visit an institution or laboratory in another COST country. They are aimed at fostering collaboration, sharing new techniques and infrastructure that may not be available in other participants' institutions or laboratories. STSM are intended especially for young researchers.

On  Wednesday 14 September the Information Day & Brokerage event on the 2017 calls for proposals of Horizon 2020's Societal Challenge 5 "Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials" was organised in Brussels.

Some of the presented calls in SC5 in 2017 might be of interest to the forestry-wood value chain.

The one-week intensive training course «Woodbased Panels: Surface Treatment» will take place at the Bern University of Applied Sciences from 23 to 27 January 2017.

This course provides a complete description of coating for wood and wood materials. It deals with the substrate and coating characterization, the application processes, and finally the evaluation of coated surface performance.

InnovaWood, in collaboration with the European Forest Institute, launches the creation of a European Innovation and Research Program (EIRP) dedicated to the sustainable, added-value use of hardwood species in Europe. This action is the official kick-off activity of the “European Hardwoods Innovation Alliance – EHIA”, which represents a trans-national, multi-actor collaboration in Europe.