ICIS Chemicals & Innovation

A strong commitment to playing a leading role in the European Commission's proposed European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) was evident at last week's SusChem annual stakeholder event in Amsterdam.

SusChem, the Cefic/EuropaBio European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry, is looking to support four key EIPs - Smart Cities, resource efficiency in the process industries, water efficient Europe and raw materials for modern society.

The meeting heard from keynote speaker Waldemar Kutt (pictured left), a senior member of the cabinet of the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, as he outlined the EIP programme and the thinking behind it. The EIPs form part of the EU's Innovation Union strategy, itself part of the Europe 2020 strategy being developed to replace the Lisbon accord.

ICIS was pleased to be a media sponsor of the SusChem event and has produced an interactive review of the meeting - with video interviews with Kutt and leading SusChem board members. You can also read more about the event at the SusChem blog.

As the ICIS Innovation Awards 2011 builds towards the entry deadline of 4 July, it's good to see our key sponsor Dow Corning getting coverage for its innovation strategy - this time in McKinsey's quarterly bulletin.

The US consultancy has interviewed chairman Stephanie Burns and chief technology officer Gregg Zank - a regular judge on the ICIS awards for the last eight years - about new product and new business model innovation.

Dow Corning's online approach to selling commodity silicone products through its Xiameter busines unit gets its usual plaudits.

The company's use of mega-trends to direct is longer term innovation effort also gets an airing. Says Zank: "We want to focus on areas that are driven by large societal trends and needs in the world--megatrends--because we know those trends are going to drive discontinuities in the marketplace.

"There are a number of areas we are particularly interested in. These include health care and personal care, renewable energy, construction, and electronics--where we are looking at the ever-expanding demand for devices and the merger of electronics with other areas such as photonics and biotechnology. And we are watching how megatrends--such as energy scarcity, urbanization, and others--interact with these.

Keeping up with my fellow bloggers on innovation, I came across this useful list of articles that had generated plenty of traffic on innovation strategy in April. It's on the Blogging Innovation site, which I have referred to previously and find has good articles on general innovation if not always chemical.

Also featuring here this week is another look at open innovation - and the main road blocks that have to be addressed to make it work.

It's by Paul Hobcraft, who runs an advisory business that stimulates sound innovation practice, researches topics that relate to innovation for the future, as well as aligning innovation to organizations' core capabilities

Innovation in the bio-based material sector continues to make ground. Amongst latest news is the decision by Netherlands-based major DSM to proceed with a 10,000 tonne/year commercial-scale facility for bio-succinic acid in collaboration with France's Roquette Freres. The plant, using yeast fermentation of crop-based materials, will be built on Roquette's site in Cassano Spinola in Italy, and be onstream in the second half of 2012.

Succinic acid can be used in packaging to footwear

Succinic acid is a chemical building block that can be used in the manufacture of polymers, resins, food and pharmaceuticals, says DSM, and provides an alternative to fossil-fuel based intermediates such as adipic acid and 1,4-butanediol. The two partners already have a demonstration plant running flat out in Lestrem in France and intend to create a joint venture company, Reverdia, to carry out business together.

News has just come my way that Huntsman Polyurethanes is to join the Bark Biorefinery Consortium Project, a four-year Canadian joint venture between academia and industry that is exploring how best to extract value from tree bark, a forest residue left over by the lumber industry.

The collaborative research program has a total budget of Can$5.25m and is being funded by the province of Ontario together with participating institutions and industry partners. As part of consortium activities, representatives from Huntsman’s CoreScience unit in the US will work closely with scientists from the University of Toronto, who are leading the project.

Leveraging combined academic and commercial know-how, the Huntsman team will focus on one core element of the initiative: converting bark into value added intermediates for polyurethane to achieve improved properties and more renewable content. Previous research in this area has shown that incorporating bark products into other polymers can result in improved thermal stability and fire resistance, as well as improved adhesive properties. 

Niek van Wiechen, Global CoreScience Director at Huntsman Polyurethanes, said: “When the University of Toronto invited Huntsman to join the Bark Biorefinery Consortium, we leapt at the chance. The program has many parallels with our own corporate research and development (R&D) strategy. Huntsman is committed to developing renewable technologies that increase the natural content in our products, provide cost effective solutions for our customers, and offer significant sustainability benefits. This is a great opportunity to turn forest residue into valuable commercial products.”

The chemical industry is gradually getting to grips with open innovation (OI) - as this article from the UK's Royal Society for Chemistry by Sean Milmo, also a regular writer for ICIS, sets out.

DSM is a leading exponent, even boasting a vice president for open innovation in the form of Rob Kirschbaum, a long-standing friend of ICIS. You can see more of its commitment to open innovation in a detailed and informative presentation by Rob van Leen, the company's chief innovation officer.

P&G, it seems, has been using OI for many years, and has not so long ago (10 years) formalised the approach as Connect + Develop, as outlined in this interesting blog on Forbes by Deborah Mills Schofield.

She argues that "P&G has created more value together with their OI partners than they ever could have alone. It is a real ecosystem that creates value on a global scale to accomplish P&G’s mission: '…improve the lives of the world’s consumers, now and for generations to come'.”

ICIS is looking forward to its collaboration as media partner with SusChem, the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry. Two editors will attend the upcoming SusChem annual stakeholder day event in Amsterdam on 17 May.

Participants at the meeting will have the opportunity to take an exclusive preview of an international art exhibition. During the lunch interval the exhibition “Our Children on Water” will take place. Created by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) as a contribution to the International Year of Chemistry (IYC) this unique international art exhibition consists of artwork created by children from three African and six European countries depicting the role that water plays in their lives.

The three African countries involved are South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia and the photo above (Copyright Zoe Heaton) shows children from Abyot Public School in Ethiopia getting involved. The artwork has been produced under the title 'Water: Refreshment or Responsibility?' The resulting collection of artwork displays breathtaking imagination and shows children's views on water from many different, thought-provoking perspectives. The artwork in addition helps to draw attention to the role of chemists in industry and academia in providing safe and clean water around the world.

European tour
The exhibition will take place in Beurs Van Berlage in Amsterdam on 17 May. Following exhibition at the SusChem Amsterdam event "Children on Water" will tour major European cities including London, Frankfurt, Prague, Rome and Barcelona throughout 2011 in collaboration with a number of European and African chemical societies.

The official launch for the exhibition will be held at the European Parliament in Brussels in June. The "Our Children on Water" project is a high profile exhibition that serves to showcase the chemical community’s involvement in the pursuit of clean and safe water for everyone.

My colleague Will Beacham on ICIS Chemical Business has just published this interesting piece on the changing pace of innovation in the chemicals sector, with interviews with leading executives at DSM and AkzoNobel as well as consultants at Accenture. Well worth a look.

Accenture's Stephan Scholtissek argues that "CEOs should recognize that the core of the company is no longer the existing businesses, but the innovations. Innovators are today seen as the troublemakers; nobody wants them. Everything is laid on for the standard business to ensure it is working properly. All the effort goes into this. The most powerful board members are all working on the day-to-day business."

In the article, DSM's chief innovation officer, Rob van Leen, says: "Five years ago, we launched our strategy making innovation more center stage in our corporate strategy, to make it more market-driven and to increase the speed of innovation. Now we want to take this to the next level in line with our four strategic pillars: high-growth economies, innovation, sustainability, and partnerships and acquisitions."

ICIS has run several roundtables recently where innovation has risen as a topic, particularly the growing move by chemical majors to carry out innovation in places like China and the difficulties encountered. Now consultancy McKinsey has carried out an industry survey to assess the current situation.

It finds that many companies have not even addressed the issue of doing research and development in emerging economies like China, India and Brazil, even though these are the markets with vibrant growth prospects and the need for localised innovation in products that meet market demands.

McKinsey found that "fully one-third of executives around the world say their companies are not doing any R&D work in emerging economies." However, the good news is that companies that are active are addressing local needs, and not just attempting to shift innovation for developed markets to low cost regions.

Says McKinsey: "Of the two-thirds of respondents whose companies pursue such efforts, the largest shares say their R&D is focused on either global product platforms or local innovation in emerging economies, as opposed to R&D for developed markets only, which respondents say is not a major focus of emerging-market R&D operations. Moreover, companies appear to be aligning their goals, whether it’s seeking lower development costs or gaining better access to customer insights, with their specific R&D focus in emerging economies."

You can read the full report here.

At last - after weeks of preparation I can officially launch the ICIS Innovation Awards 2011. This annual competition, now in its eighth year, recognises outstanding technological and business innovation in the chemical industry.