IPST has undertaken significant effort to increase its visibility on campus, across industry, and throughout the international research community in the last few years.  “IPST is becoming recognized for being at the cross-industry, cross-disciplinary intersections of the research most critical to cellulose-based research,” comments director Norman Marsolan.

Through the support of the Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation and benefactor George Mead, IPST has sponsored prizes in forest bioproducts innovation as part of the annual campus-wide Georgia Tech Research and Innovation Competition.  The object of IPST’s involvement in the competition is to stimulate innovations in forest bioproducts, including advances in manufacturing technologies. The topic areas include innovations in pulp and paper, biomaterials, biofuels and chemicals that advance the horizons of the forest bioeconomy.  Jie Wu and Qining Sun won top honors and a $10,000 award in 2012 and 2013, respectively.  Four other students won $5,000 poster awards in those years.  More than 300 students entered the 2013 poster competition alone.

Each year, IPST issues requests for proposals for research grants from research faculty in four schools across campus—Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemistry and Biochemistry.  The Institute awards about twelve fellowships each year.  About $6.5 million has been awarded since FY 2009. The students conduct this research in an interdisciplinary environment, networking with students and faculty beyond their home schools.

IPST director Norman Marsolan was profiled in The Whistle, Georgia Tech’s campus-wide newsletter, in June, 2013, showcasing IPST’s opportunities and programs.  IPST’s own quarterly newsletter reaches an estimated 1,500 people on campus, throughout the US, and around the world.

IPST reaches out to industry. Each year, it holds an executive conference for member companies and guests featuring Georgia Tech’s research capability to assist forward-looking companies in their transformation efforts. This year, there was also a workshop on future scenarios, which formed the agenda for the spring conference and guided the RFP for fellowship applications.

IPST is an affiliate member of the forest products industry’s Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance, a unique association developing the industry’s research priorities and attracting funding to it.  This association provides added visibility before key government agencies such as the Department of Agriculture/US Forest Service, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense.   

TAPPI—The Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry—holds a conference on nanocellulose each year, and IPST has been a sponsor of the event for several years.  IPST’s ad recently appeared in TAPPI’s Paper 360.  IPST is a regular participant in TAPPI’s International Research Management Committee, involving scientists from dozens of countries around the world.  IPST professors are frequent contributors to international research conferences. IPST students and faculty regularly engage in exchanges with universities on the American continents and overseas.