Our commitment to the health and safety of our employees, to product quality and to the use of the latest environmental technologies demands continuous investments in research and development. In this context, in 2007 we launched a series of R&D projects engaging the academic community in the U.K. These projects related to the building materials sector are designed to achieve several objectives: to help us to continuously improve our processes and technical solutions in the most environmentally-sound manner; to encourage technical specialization particularly on sector-specific issues; and to promote a knowledge interchange between TITAN’s field-based technical staff and cutting-edge academic research communities. These R&D initiatives have already enjoyed positive preliminary feedback, as they respond both to our business needs and the interests of the academic research community.