CERES Competence Center for the Materials Bioeconomy : A Flagship for our Sustainable Future

The CERES Flagship funded by the Academy of Finland is the joint effort of Aalto University and VTT. It aims at building a sustainable future for the bio-economy materials and applications with a solid scientific foundation. One of the goals of CERES is the future success of the Finnish forest industry renewal. CERES addresses some of the most urgent global megatrends such as resource sufficiency, climate change, and quality of life, by turning these megatrend challenges into opportunities, and further into potential solutions that are built on scientific discoveries. The technical and scientific objectives of CERES are (a) gaining deep knowledge on the nature of the interactions that exist between lignocellulosic systems and water; (b) developing methods for lignocellulose disassembly; (c) using new tools and methodologies to facilitate creation of next generation materials based on sustainable resources. The CERES Flagship will create a unique foundation for new bioeconomy innovations in Finland. The purpose is to develop new materials, in particular based on lignocellulose and forest biomass, for industrial scale production of packaging, textiles and separation systems, as well as semiconductors, composites and solutions for energy storage.