The US Congress has appropriated $13 million to support the National Textile Centre (NTC). The funding is for research designed to make the US textile industry more competitive globally and is included in the Fiscal Year 2006 Science, State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations Act. This is the highest level of funding the NTC has ever received, and represents a 30% increase over Fiscal Year 2005.
Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee, noted that Congress considers increased funding for textile research a priority. "The National Textile Centre trains textile industry engineers and scientists, and conducts state-of-the-art research projects. These activities are essential for the US textile industry to maintain its global competitiveness."
Funds are provided to the NTC through a US Department of Commerce grant. In the past four years, the grant had remained at $10 million per year. With its additional allocation of $3 million for FY2006, the NTC will be able to fund approximately 15 to 20 new fibre/textile research projects as well as continuing 46 current projects.
The NTC is a research consortium of eight US universities: Auburn, Clemson, Cornell, Georgia Tech, Philadelphia, North Carolina State, University of California Davis and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Research programmes support the entire fibre-textile sector, from fibres through retailing.
Since it was founded in 1990, the NTC has produced more than $300 million in new economic development, six start-up companies, 11 industry-funded technology transfer programmes, and over 70 patents and applications, copyrights and notices of invention. It has completed over 150 research projects, educated more than 1,600 students, and generated in excess of 2,000 publications and presentations.
