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For what is now the eighth time, achievements in the field of wood-science and forestry have been honoured by the presentation of the Josef Umdasch Research Prize. The winners of the prestigious international award were honoured at a ceremony that took place in the University for Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria. The prize is endowed with EUR 30,000, a sum awarded this year in two equal parts to a research group from the Swiss Materials Testing and Research Institute (Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt, EMPA) in Dübendorf, Switzerland, led by Dr. Klaus Richter, and to Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Adolf Merl for his dissertation at the Technical University of Vienna.
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Hilde Umdasch and Alfred Umdasch presented six scientists with the 2006 Josef Umdasch Research Prize for two outstanding research projects during a ceremony at Vienna's University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences.
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Both these outstanding scientific undertakings concern themselves with the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by the long-term binding of carbon dioxide (CO2) in "carbon-storage" wood and timber products. Trees absorb CO2 from the air in order to produce wood, inner and outer bark, leaves or needles. The GHGs released to atmosphere are reduced proportionately by the CO2 held in storage by wood that is neither burned nor allowed to rot.
The "Model for Assessing Strategies of Optimised Forest Husbandry and Wood Usage to Minimise Climate Change" EMPA research project demonstrates that in the long-term projection, optimum utilisation of new-growth wood and a reduction in old-growth excess will constitute a best-case combination for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. A positive effect on job markets emerged as another of the project's findings. The ecological, economic and political situations of entire countries were all factored into the study, which has extended over a number of years.
The author of the dissertation entitled "Construction Resource Management in Urban Areas – Vienna as a Case Study – Sustained Usage of Wood in Carcass Construction", in turn, focussed on the Vienna area and environs. As regards the use of wood in construction and its positive environmental effect, Dr. Adolf Merl's work focuses on both the opportunities offered and the constraints that apply.
The prize is an endowment from an initiative undertaken by Hilde Umdasch and Alfred Umdasch - the owners of the Umdasch group of companies - and is awarded every two years in memoriam Counsellor of Commerce Josef Umdasch by Austria's Universität für Bodenkultur, the University for Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna. The Umdasch Group maintains traditionally close relations with this institute of higher education and research, which has a primary focus on wood science and forestry. Joint research projects, for example, are ongoing at this time.
Wood is an essential raw material for both the Group's business units, Doka-Schalungstechnik and the Umdasch Shopfitting Group. The jury's considerations, however, are expressly not restricted to the commercially exploitable results of research undertakings. As Hilde and Alfred Umdasch have stipulated in the endowment's statutes, the purpose is to promote the exploration of knowledge along the entire value-adding chain represented by forestry and wood. The prize has established itself as a fixed point in the international research landscape. This year, for example, submissions from outside the German-speaking countries included projects from Turkey and Finland. Consequently, work written in either German or English can be considered. The jury looks forward to receiving entries for the 2008 award in the period January to April 2008.
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| Alfred Umdasch presents Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Adolf Daniel Merl with the EUR 15,000 endowment from this year's Josef Umdasch Research Prize. |
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| Hilde Umdasch congratulates the members of the Swiss research group Dr. Klaus Richter, Dr. Frank Werner, Ruedi Taverna ad Peter Hofer (from left to right) and Edgar Kaufmann (not shown) on their excellent research. |
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