At the turning point of the decade of the 80 s to the 90 s, the characteristic changes have emerged : the global environmental issues, the generation alternations of high technology, and the drastic changes in the East-West relations.
Looking over the recent trends of paper technology and paper research, this paper aims to propose a future direction of paper research in the 90 s.
The technological trends are taken from Sterling Publications's “World Pulp and Paper Technology” for the year 1990, 91, and 92. The research trends are taken mainly from the “Fundamental Research Symposium” in 1989 together with Tappi meeting's proceedings of 1991.
To maintain international competitiveness of paper industry under so-called borderless trade conditions of the 90 s, the technological superiority is vitally important.
Two major objectives of technological developments in the 90 s are higher production efficiency and higher products quality.
For that purpose, the image of paper industry has to be changed and the young and excellent engineers and scientists have to be recruited.
The areas of fundamental research of paper science accessible by university laboratory up to now are paper chemistry, paper physics, and coating science, etc.
The historical development and a future direction of the Paper Science Laboratory of the University of Tokyo is introduced together with the present status of its activity.