The WAX Project (Natural Wax of Arctic Berries as our Treasure) as a Finalist in the Arctic Award 2017 Competition and received a Certificate in the category: Sustainable Use of Resources.

The Award celebration took place in Luleå at the Interreg Nord Conference Borderless opportunities in the Arctic, 15-16 November 2017. The Coordinator of the WAX Project, Director Janne Remes of the Center of Microscopy and Nanotechnology (University of Oulu) was one of the keynote speakers at the Conference.

The goal of the Project is to develop methods that enable extracting natural wax from arctic berries. Berry waxes will be analysed and their chemical and physical characteristics will be compared with other available waxes. Potential use in technical applications, such as biocomposites, will be studied. Potential wax based products will be analyzed from business and marketing points of views with the aim of exploring new niche applications and products.

The WAX Project will have its 1^st business development workshop 23 November at Oamk involving different stakeholders, besides the Project partners (www.oamk.fi/wax). The focus of the workshop is on the potential use of arctic berry wax in cosmetics. The aim is to gain customer understanding by creating value propositions with the help of service design tools.

The international WAX Project offers Oamk students interesting topics for theses and project work.

Päivi Aro and Taina Vuorela