EU funding for sustainable research project

A consortium of 15 partners from the coatings and joinery industries and research institutes have been successful in receiving EU funding of €2.7M towards Servowood, an FP7 project whose goal is to develop and establish European standards that will facilitate the prediction of service life for exterior wood coatings. The total budgeted cost of the project is €3.8M.

The consortium is made up of CEPE (the European Coatings Federation, representing the European paint manufacturers) and trade associations and consultancies from Denmark, Germany, Spain and the UK, representing both paint manufacturers and the wood supply chain, together with research institutes and two SME coatings and joinery manufacturers. The three year project, which started on January 1, will expose a wide range of wood panels to natural weathering and a range of accelerated tests, some of which will be novel, to determine which tests best predict natural degradation.