(Catalan Cork Manufacturers' Association)

 

 

Stimulating R&D activity

Execution and stimulation of studies on arboriculture, transformation technology, new products, new applications, new markets, etc. in collaboration with universities and research centres.

Participation in European research programmes for improving forestry, studying cork oak pathologies, analysing finished products and their components, etc.

In recent years, the Catalan Cork Institute has promoted various lines of research proposed by the sector, basically applied research, with the objective of broadening the knowledge of the products and their behaviour.

Over the last three years, this has generated a dynamics of close collaboration with various Catalan university departments.

The main studies are:
- Thesis on analytic methods for detecting 2,4,6-trichloranisole (TCA) in cork
AECORK- Catalan Cork Institute - University of Girona (Chemistry Dept.)

- Thesis on improving the methods of cork microbiology.
AECORK - Autonomous University of Barcelona (Microbiology Dept.)

- Study of the evolution and the behaviour of different types of wines and stoppers.
Catalan Cork Institute - Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona (Oenology Fac.)

* The Catalan cork sector continues to invest efforts in the technological improvement of the production processes to make advances in productivity that are sustainable and boost the quality of the end products. At the same time, this sets up protective barriers around the sector and improves the sector's capacity to differentiate its products. Various firms in the sector are investing in the improvement of the technology of different phases of the process with the support of the Centre for Technological and Industrial Development of the Ministry of Industry and Energy (CEDETI).