ICIS Innovation Awards 2017

You have just over one month to submit your entry for the ICIS Innovation Awards 2017! The awards were launched in 2004 by European Chemical News and are celebrating their fourteenth anniversary this year. The awards have grown in popularity with each succeeding year and SusChem has been proud to contribute to their judging panels on many occasions. This year SusChem board member Dr Pierre Barthelemy will be part of the judging panel. The awards include categories for company innovations and also recognise high performing individual entries.

Innovation is a key driver for sustainable growth and profitability in the chemical sector. And the ICIS Awards look to recognise and reward the very best in innovation in the chemical industry. Sustainable innovation is at the heart of SusChem’s priorities and the platform is happy to support the awards.

The ICIS Innovation Awards focus on companies and individuals that show high levels of innovation in products and processes, as well as providing benefits to the environment and advancing progress towards sustainability.

The winners will be those companies and individuals that have made significant steps forward in technological and business innovation, with tangible results emerging during 2016 and the early part of this year.

For the second year ICIS is again teaming up with Elsevier’s R&D Solutions as the overall sponsor of the awards and as a partner in the Alpha Innovator of the Year Awards for individual achievement that were launched last year.

Judging panel

The awards are open to any chemical company or collaborative effort between industry and academia anywhere in the World. The judging panel will be looking for innovative projects that solve problems or provide solutions for the company or its customers or that demonstrate an innovative approach to business, the environment and sustainability.

Pierre (pictured left) is executive director for research and innovation at Cefic, representing the priorities of the chemical industry towards the EU institutions for innovation-related aspects. He joined Solvay in 1988 and was seconded to Cefic in 2014. He has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Liège, Belgium

"I am really pleased to be part of this year's ICIS Innovation awards judging panel," said Pierre. "And am looking forward to seeing some truly innovative and sustainable entries."

Pierre’s fellow members of the 2017 judging panel include Christina Valimaki, senior director, chemicals segment marketing, for Elsevier; Mike Lacey, new product identification manager within the New Product Platform group of Exxon Mobil Chemical; Just Jansz, an independent board member and advisor, and founder and MD of business and technology management consultancy Expertise Beyond Borders; Mike McKenna, COO for Maroon Group, a North American specialty chemical and ingredients distributor; Paul Bjacek, principal director and lead for Accenture’s chemicals and natural resources strategic research; and Peter Nieuwenhuizen, global research, development and innovation director, specialty chemicals, at AkzoNobel.

Which award?

Past ICIS awards winners have included the largest multinational and the smallest ‘micro’ SME – but the common denominator for success has always been the quality of the innovation. This year there are four prize categories for company entries to choose from:

• Best Product Innovation
• Best Innovation by a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME)
• Best Business Innovation
• Innovation with Best Benefit for Environmental and Sustainability

An overall winner will be picked from the winners of the four individual categories.

In addition the Alpha Innovator of the Year Awards recognise individual scientists, engineers and other R&D professionals who are unafraid to tackle roadblocks head on, and who are unrelenting in their pursuit of innovation and optimisation as they strive to push the industry forward – not only as an industry but as a society.

Again this year, two individuals will be recognised as Alpha Innovators of the Year – one for their work in the area of product development and/or process optimisation and the other for innovations that help develop and promote environmental performance and sustainability in the chemical industry.

How to enter?

The ICIS Innovation Awards are open to any chemical company or individual, regardless of where they are based.

Having decided the appropriate category or categories you want to enter in either the ICIS Innovation Awards or Alpha Innovator of the Year Awards you then need to complete the relevant online application form that can be found at www.icis.com/awards, upload any supporting documents and click ‘submit’ – that is it! 

The deadline for receipt of entries is 30 June 2017. A confirmation of receipt of your entry will be sent by email.

Winners of an award will receive a free trial to Reaxys, Elsevier’s R&D Solutions’ web-based tool for retrieval of chemistry information and data from published literature, including journals and patents; enjoy extensive editorial coverage in ICIS Chemical Business and ICIS online; be able to build on further publicity both within their company and externally, related to their success in the competition; be invited to an Awards lunch with the other winners, sponsors and judges later in the year; and receive an active Innovation Awards logo to host on their website, promoting their success in the competition.

The deadline for entries is 30 June 2017. A shortlist of successful entries in each category will be published in ICIS Chemical Business in August. Winners will be notified in September, and the announcement of the winners will be made in ICIS Chemical Business in October. Award presentations will be made in early December at a special lunch in a leading London venue.

For more information about the ICIS Chemical Business Innovation Awards view the launch video below or for specific queries contact John Baker at ICIS.

Three Awesome Reasons to be at #suschem2017

The annual SusChem Stakeholder event is happening on 8 June 2017 in Brussels. To find out more about #suschem2017 and register click here!


See you there!

Are you the Most Innovative European Biotech SME?

SusChem founding partner EuropaBio is inviting small and medium sized biotech companies (SMEs) across Europe to apply for the 8th edition of its Most Innovative European Biotech SME Award: a unique annual initiative recognising biotech innovation and its contribution to society. SMEs interested in entering the competition are invited to apply by 26 June 2017 via the awards dedicated website.

Three categories are available for entry: healthcare, agricultural or industrial biotechnology. Applications must be submitted online at biotechSMEawards.eu by close of business on 26 June and two companies will be shortlisted in each category by a jury of biotech experts.

The winners will be celebrated during a landmark event for SMEs to held in early October. Each winner will also receive a €10 000 prize and two years free membership of EuropaBio.

In order to be considered for the EuropaBio SME awards a company must qualify as an SME under the standard EU SME definition: the company's primary location of operations must be within Europe, it must employ 250 or less staff, and its annual turnover must be €50 million or less.

Why SMEs?

According to the European Commission, “small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of Europe's economy. They represent 90% of all businesses in the EU. In the past five years, they have created around 85% of new jobs and provided two-thirds of the total private sector employment in the EU.” 

In other words, SMEs matter and their leaders in innovation should be recognised and rewarded.

Biotech exemplifies the way in which science and scientific breakthroughs can be applied to respond to society’s current challenges. From new therapies that can address unmet medical needs and fight epidemics and rare diseases, to industrial processes that use renewable feedstocks instead of crude oil, to drought-resistant crops that allow farmers around the world to feed more people under unpredictable climatic conditions, biotechnology pays significant economic, social and environmental dividends.

The awards have become one of the main initiatives in the European biotech calendar, with almost 200 SMEs competing over the years. The success stories from previous winners can be read online at biotechSMEawards.eu.

The jury

The expert jury are all involved in biotech and understand the science, the funding realities and the regulatory and political frameworks in which European biotech SMEs operate. They appreciate the potential of innovation and SMEs for Europe’s future, and they will carefully analyse each application to select the nominees. The jury includes:

• Peter Heinrich, Chairman of German national biotech association BIO Deutschland and Managing Director of Sinfonie Life Science Management GmbH, Planegg.
• Frank Bulens, member of the Management Committee and Board of Directors of Capricorn Venture Partners. He is active in diagnostics, therapeutics and medical devices as well as digital health-tech for the various Capricorn funds that are investing in these areas.
• John Brennan, the new Secretary General of EuropaBio, who takes up his post from 19 June 2017, with over 25 years’ experience both on the regulatory and the industrial sides of the healthcare industry.

Further jury members will be announced before the summer.

Water in the Circular Economy: Innovations for Urban Water Treatment

The FP7 project R3Water (Reuse, Recovery and Resource Efficiency: Innovations in Urban wastewater treatment) will be holding its final conference on 30 May 2017 in Brussels. The conference will provide participants with detailed information on the innovations for urban water treatment developed in the project.

The final R3Water project conference entitled ‘Water in the circular economy – innovations for urban water treatment’ will take place from 10:00 on 30 May 2017 at the Representation of the State of Hessen to the EU, 21 Rue Montoyer, 1000 Brussels.

As well as presentations related to the developments made during R3Water, several keynote speakers will give insights on the reuse of water, resource recovery and resource efficiency in urban waste water treatment.

The agenda for the meeting can be downloaded here and the registration form for the event can be found here.

More about R3Water

The R3Water project was funded under the European Commission’s FP7 programme and started in January 2014 for 42 months with a budget of EUR 7.8 million.

Wastewater treatment plants are usually regarded as facilities to avoid emissions from wastewater. Current research and development shows that these plants can be converted and upgraded into production units to provide energy, nutrients, water for re-use and possibly other valuable outputs. This is achieved by improved resource efficiency in the plant as well as through the use of new technologies and business models that allow the re-use of resources from the incoming water.

The main objective of the R3Water project is to demonstrate solutions that support this transition from a treatment plant for urban wastewater to a production unit for different valuable products.

The project consortium, coordinated by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, brings together 12 technological partners from seven European countries.

More information about the R3Water project can be found on the project website and in its brochure.