The UK’s first ever timber engineering graduates could become a reality within four years thanks to the Scottish Forest Industries Cluster’s (SFIC) latest initiative.
This news was broken to the industry at last week’s official launch of the Cluster-backed national centre of excellence for timber engineering based at Edinburgh’s Napier University.
The centre has a £2.3m budget for the first five years and the industry has been asked to contribute £390,000 towards the cost (TTJ January 26). At last Thursday’s event wood. for good pledged £50,000 – the largest single donation to date.
SFIC developed the project to meet growing demand for training and research in timber engineering and in anticipation of the projected increase in UK log output in the next 20 years.
Robin Mackenzie, head of the School of the Built Environment at Napier said: ‘Timber engineering innovation has to make use of our homegrown timber. Currently there is no degree in timber engineering and there is limited teaching in engineering skills, in processing or timber frame engineering. Because of this architects are unable to design timber frame buildings so they turn to concrete and steel instead.’
Charles Trevor, managing director of wood. for good, said the project addresses the industry’s need to educate future professionals about the advantages of using wood and provides the opportunity to reach architects and engineers at student level.
SFIC and Napier University will link with timber frame engineering organisations worldwide to formulate its training and research and development programmes. The training courses will eventually be rolled out to other colleges and universities.
