At the picture from the left: Gerald Schweighofer,
founder of the prize, Jan Söderlind, Nordic Timber Council,
Bo Borgström, member of the jury of the Schweighofer prize.
A unique collaboration was awarded in Vienna in Austria yesterday evening. For innovations in the world of wood, the joint initiative European Wood was given the Schweighofer Prize for its special initiatives in the field of marketing and education. And for the first time, the Schweighofer Prize goes to a collaborative project instead of a person.

“Receiving the Schweighofer Innovation Prize is a wonderful public confirmation of an initiative, which for the very first time enables joint European efforts to promote wood in Asia,” says Alfred Jechart, MD of Mayr-Melnhof-Holz in Leoben in Austria and representative of the Steering Group. 
“The prize is great proof that by combining our efforts, we can achieve substantial results. And we have to. The boom on the building markets especially in China is such a big challenge that we have to join forces,” explains Jan Söderlind, chairman of European Wood and MD at the Nordic Timber Council who accepted the Schweighofer Prize yesterday evening.
European Wood is collaboration between the Nordic Timber Council (Finland, Sweden, Norway), proHolz Austria, FrenchTimber and the German Timber Promotion Fund, Holzabsatzfonds. The project started in 2004 and is run in close cooperation with CEI-Bois, the European Confederation of Woodworking Industries. The joint efforts of these European partners have already brought noticeable results. With two demo houses, one on wall constructions (in Chengdu) and the other on roof constructions (centre of Beijing), the Chinese building specialists can in a very tangible way learn the details of the state of art of building with wood.
“In China we are facing hard tasks. In this part of the world, solid stone and concrete buildings are the traditional ways of building a house. Here we have not only to convince all buyers or clients, we have to influence the modification of building regulations in a way that building with wood is able to give all its advantages to the people there,” say Jan Söderlind and points to first successes in affecting building regulations to enable wooden constructions. For future, wood in sustainable development will be our strongest argument to get the Chinese’s attention and focus on a sustainable society.
One new wood construction standard has been approved by the Ministry of Construction in China, listing European species as recommended, alongside domestic and North American species. Other standards and building codes are under development.
The Schweighofer Innovation Prize in the new "Marketing and Education" category is given to 2 winners. European Wood has been awarded for its marketing activities in China and Professor Wolfgang Winter from the University of Vienna has been awarded for his efforts in "Postgraduate Education: Wood Based Building Design for Sustainable Urban Development". Both winners in this category receive a prize of 25,000 Euros each.