Dec 17, 2008. /Lesprom.com/. The Finnish companies KCL, VTT and TKK have agreed jointly to respond to industrial research needs for wood and renewable biomaterials of global significance, KCL reported. The signed cooperation agreement creates a shared and comprehensive research environment. Customers may choose to do business with one of the parties and still utilize the expertise and equipment of all three. The cooperation agreement between KCL, TKK and VTT also covers coordination of future investments in order to effectively direct resources and avoid overlapping. The shared research environment includes laboratory and pilot plant scale devices starting from the treatment of wood and other renewable biomaterials and extending all the way to end-product applications and special analysis devices. It comprises approximately 30 pilot systems and more than 400 laboratory systems to support materials research in line with sustainable development as well as the development of new end-products. More than 100 technical experts and over 400 researchers support customer research projects.