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.