Georgia Tech's Renewable Bioproducts Institute Receives $43.6 Million in Legacy Funding

Paper Chemistry Foundation Gift Supports Future of Forest Bioproducts Research and Education

June 10, 2014 • Atlanta, GA

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The Institute of Paper Science and Technology is now the Renewable Bioproducts Institute.

The Georgia Institute of Technology has received a $43.6 million gift from the Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation (IPCF). This major grant, one of the single largest gifts in Georgia Tech’s history, affirms the Institute’s position as a leading driver of the future of the forest bioproducts industry.

“We are extremely grateful to the Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation for entrusting us with this generous gift,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “Through the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, we will maximize Georgia Tech’s and the state of Georgia’s strengths in sustainability and innovation to develop real-world applications as well as educate the next generation of leadership in the forest and bioproducts industry.”

The Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation represents the legacy of the Institute of Paper Chemistry (IPC), founded in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1929 to provide scientific research and future leaders for the paper industry. IPC became the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST) when it relocated to Atlanta in 1989. It subsequently merged with Georgia Tech in 2004.

Last week, Georgia Tech announced that the Institute would be renamed the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) to reflect its expanding engagement with a broader range of biomaterials processing industries. Like the university’s other nine interdisciplinary research institutes representing Georgia Tech’s core research areas, RBI brings together a multidisciplinary capability to identify opportunities and address the complex challenges of its industry and government research partners.

“We believe the relaunching of the Institute as the Renewable Bioproducts Institute is a natural development in its evolution and an important advance in its progress,” said IPCF board chair George Lanier. “Georgia Tech is demonstrating its commitment to this industry, which is so important to Georgia and the nation. The industry’s emerging opportunities can be effectively developed there.”

All interdisciplinary research institutes at Georgia Tech are designed to facilitate research collaborations with industries and other partners to develop opportunities in strategic market areas, emphasizing economic development and applied technology.

“We deeply appreciate the confidence IPCF has placed in us,” said RBI executive director Norman Marsolan, “and we will continue its legacy of growth in bioproducts research and industry leadership development. We are on the threshold of a new era of development of this renewable, sustainable natural resource, and we pledge our efforts to justify IPCF’s faith in us by contributing to the full realization of its potential.”

The Renewable Bioproducts Institute benefits from a significant endowment originating with the Institute of Paper Chemistry. That endowment has contributed to the support of more than 1,500 graduate alumni through the years and currently supports more than 50 paper science and engineering students who advance the research mission of IPST/RBI through their faculty-directed research. RBI will continue to build on that legacy by working closely with industrial partners to foster an innovative, competitive and profitable bioproducts industry, while the endowment will continue to support graduate studies in paper science and engineering.

The Next Frontiers in Space

A new report, written by The Planetary Society, says the clock is ticking for exploration on Mars. Quickly. As the group notes, NASA only has one mission in development for the Red Planet — the Mars 2020 Rover. More is needed, according to the Society, particularly an updated orbiter and a rover that can land and retrieve samples dug up by the 2020 robot. James Wray in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences is a science team member on most of NASA and the European Space Agency’s missions currently active on Mars.

I’m excited and re-energized by our President’s support of planetary exploration, from his inaugural address to his proposal of an all-time record(!) budget for NASA’s Planetary Science Division. The proposed funding will enable the long-overdue launch of a robust program to explore ocean worlds in the outer solar system, beginning with Jupiter’s most fascinating moon, Europa. For far too long, NASA has obeyed Arthur C. Clarke’s fictional admonishment on Europa in his 2010: Odyssey Two: “Attempt no landings there.” And yet, we must! And, someday soon, we will.

NASA’s budding ocean worlds program can benefit from many lessons — mostly positive, and perhaps a few negative — from its extremely productive Mars Exploration Program. I can directly attest to the synergies enabled by a well-integrated series of orbital and surface missions. Maintaining this degree of complementarity requires careful planning, and (as The Planetary Society notes) the time is nigh for action to ensure that our expanded exploration of the outer solar system does not leave our samples — and our science — stranded at Mars. We do not want NASA’s next (sample-caching) rover to be nicknamed “Watney.”

Two years ago, I coauthored a NASA-solicited report on the objectives that a new Mars orbiter could address in the early 2020s. Such a robotic mission not only could follow up on new evidence for modern liquid flows on Mars, but also represents one way to fulfill the scientific community’s consensus top priority for Mars exploration in this decade: returning carefully selected samples from the surface of Mars. But there’s another way to achieve this. As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did for the moon, human astronauts could return the first samples from Mars, whether via their own geological survey of the planet or by retrieving samples robotically cached prior to their arrival. And therein lies perhaps the biggest question for NASA’s near future: how soon will astronauts be visiting Mars?

To answer this question, I am eagerly awaiting the President’s appointment of a new NASA Administrator. The agency has embarked on a multi-decade journey to Mars, requiring still much new technology development. But the President has argued for a more accelerated timeline, and if Apollo is any guide, then the proper funding and focus can make anything possible. New leadership at NASA should be empowered to balance these visions and pursue a synergistic robotic-and-human program of exploration, taking full advantage of the unprecedented international interest in Mars. Half a dozen different government agencies and at least one private company are planning missions there in the next few years. NASA has provided an undisputed head start, representing the only nation thus far to safely land on and return science from the Red Planet (seven times!). Ad astra per Mars!

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