ICB: Celebrating the talented individual

John Baker

11-Aug-2016

Innovation plays a visible and increasingly well-articulated role in many chemical company strategies these days. CEOs and board members are keen to talk up their emphasis and spending on R&D and innovation to investors and stakeholders, especially at the more specialty chemical-oriented producers.

Elsevier Innovators tackle the seemingly impossible

Elsevier

Innovators tackle the seemingly impossible

Today, it seems, companies innovate. They put great store by their innovation strategy and effort, and protect intellectual property and proprietary knowledge closely. They see it as the lifeblood of the company, driving growth though delivery of new products and processes and, increasingly, solutions for customers.

But on first sight, one thing seems to be missing these days: recognition of the creative, talented individuals who lie behind the many innovations being brought to the market. The corporate story is the one that makes the news.

RISE OF THE INNOVATOR

It was not always so. The chemical industry has always been inventive and in the past has celebrated the creators of many of its major milestones: take, for instance, Wallace Carothers and Roy Plunkett, both of DuPont, who the invented nylon and Teflon, respectively. Or Leo Baekeland, the Belgian-American chemist who developed Bakelite.

Christina Valimaki, senior director of strategic marketing for the chemicals industry at Elsevier, believes the current situation is the result of a 20 to 30 year trend whereby chemical companies have become more guarded about putting their researchers in the spotlight because of commercial and IP concerns.

The changing emphasis in innovation, away from pure new materials to new uses for these and to problem-solving solutions, also seems to be a key part of the trend. “I’m not convinced that individuals are any less critical than they were in the past,” Valimaki adds. To this end, Elsevier R&D Solutions has been running a campaign this year called Get to Alpha, which is designed to celebrate the individual successes and talents that lie behind innovation even at the corporate level.

Get to Alpha recognises that an “Alpha moment”, when a researcher achieves an important milestone in his or her product and process innovation, happens in an instant, “but you don’t get there without unrelenting perseverance, knowledge and skill.”

Researchers of course are not generally motivated by fame and recognition. Overcoming scientific challenges, knowing that the work they do is important and helping solve real problems, and contributing to their company’s success are all important factors.

RECOGNISING ACHIEVEMENT

John Creighton, formerly global R&D director at specialty chemical producer WR Grace, supports this notion that many 
researchers are driven by the satisfaction they get from the work they are doing.

“Working in an organisation that is 
effective, if a scientist gets an opportunity to come up with a creative idea and carry it all the way through until it is being manufactured and used commercially on a large scale is something that I think people take great pride in.

“It is one of those rewards that is not 
necessarily material like getting a bonus or promotion or a technical award from the CEO of the company… but there is that 
internal reward that you are really contributing and getting something done.”

John Lever, formerly research director with Milliken, says he was drawn to industrial research after his PhD because of the more practical and real world aspects of the work as compared to academic research.

“I feel that that was validated over my 
career, it was a good choice for me… I wanted to see practical results not only in the manufacturing plant but out in the real world. I can point to something on the shelves and say I effected that – I did something that enabled that to be as good as it is.”

He adds that he sees that practical and commercial realisation as a recurring trend in the motivation for the R&D teams he recruited over the years.

“It was always fun to produce something that was going commercial – and getting the recognition within peer groups that you have done something that has led the company to scale up and invest in the product.”

Steve Toton, ex-DuPont vice president of technology, adds that there is no doubt that technologists and scientists get motivated by the technical challenge.

It’s a case of “give me a challenging 
problem to solve, that is going to require out-of-the-box thinking and that is going to 
leverage my capabilities… if you can create that level of excitement for an individual or even for an R&D organisation that is what gets their juices flowing.”

DRIVING AN INNOVATION CULTURE

In today’s environment, he adds, “it’s not so much just technology forward, it is looking for big opportunity spaces and problems that can be solved through science & technology. Ideas and solutions must provide commercial value. Communicate these challenges broadly in the organization, and you will get scientists, and business developers motivated.

“Certainly individual and team recognition is a critical part of motivating innovation, but nothing beats senior leadership formally 
recognising a technology or sustainability solution that makes a significant impact to the top or bottom line of a corporation”

Or, as Ulrich Kuesthardt, chief innovation office at Evonik, noted recently: “We are growing the people… We don’t just believe in numbers but have belief in people and the fact that business development is important, not just the research itself. You have to leave room for people to develop and come up with ideas.”

In this respect, Evonik tries to drive an 
innovation culture, running an annual innovation and entrepreneurship award and striving to embrace a culture that learns from mistakes. Regular “ideation jams” are held to bring out new ideas, and open innovation is valued as a way of working with others to learn and bring in additional 
expertise and competencies.

But with all that said, who’s to say that recognition is not important. Like Evonik, many leading innovative companies do indeed hold internal innovation competitions and awards to enable good work to be rewarded with internal recognition at least.

ICIS and Elsevier are playing their part in recognising the role of the individual in 
innovation. Besides the Get to Alpha campaign, this year the ICIS Innovation Awards, sponsored by Elsevier R&D Solutions, has two categories for individual recognition. Entries are now closed and the winners will be revealed in October.

As Valimaki concludes: “We want to 
recognise that it is very rare to make a big breakthrough and that innovation relies on step-by-step progress. It takes a lot of work and progress is non-linear. But it is worth celebrating the individual contributions that are not always made all that visible by the companies these days.”

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