SusChem and SPIRE thank Ger and Ed

At the latest SusChem Board meeting (October 5) SusChem Chairman Dr. Klaus Sommer thanked Ger Spork and Ed d'Hooghe for their contributions to SusChem's achievements and wished them both good luck on their return from secondment at Cefic R&I to Dow. And the entire SusChem team wishes them all the best for the future.

Klaus Sommer thanked Ger for being the "good spirit of SusChem" for the past four years. He praised Ger's self motivation, loyalty and ability to coordinate the diverse stakeholder community that was SusChem - a task he described as being akin to "herding cats". Klaus also thanked Ger for being "great fun to work with" and hoped that he would "not be a stranger" to SusChem in his role as New Business Development Manger in Dow Benelux.

Klaus Sommer introduced Dr. Jacques Komornicki as Ger's successor at Cefic. You can read an extended interview with Jacques and Ger here.

SPIRE success
Klaus was also full of praise for Ed d'Hooghe who is returning to Dow to be Human Resources Director for the Benelux region. Klaus described Ed as the very "visible spearhead for SPIRE" and thanked him for his drive, tenacity and stamina in establishing, what he believed to be, "the basis for success for SPIRE" going forward.

Klaus Sommer is President of A.SPIRE aisbl the legal entity established to develop the SPIRE Public Private Partnership.

Ed's duties as Executive Director of A.SPIRE have now been assumed by Loredana Ghinea from the Cefic R&I team who has been working on the SPIRE concept since its inception. Klaus, Loredana and Ed are pictured above.

Consultation closed
Loredana's main task at the moment is the analysis of the responses to the SPIRE Roadmap Consultation document. The consultation period closed on 1 October and several hundred responses were received.

These will be used to inform a final version of the Roadmap which should be available by the end of October.

For more information on SPIRE activities or to become a member of the PPP consortium, please contact Loredana or visit the SPIRE website.

SusChem: Some Future Perspectives

Jacques Komornicki is taking over the reins of the SusChem secretariat now that Ger Spork is returning to Dow after a successful four year secondment as the ‘face’ of SusChem. SusChem News caught up with Ger and Jacques, pictured below with SusChem chairman Klaus Sommer (left), to review the recent achievements of the platform and discuss what the future may hold.

Dr. Jacques Komornicki has a chemical and materials research background and is joining Cefic from French company Arkema where he was recently R&D Director for oxygenated products. His career to date has been very much in research areas working with various materials development initiatives including high performance polymers. He describes himself as a “Research and Innovation fan”, which is why he was attracted to the secondment to Cefic and SusChem.

“It is a very different job, with a steep learning curve,” he admits. “I will need to understand the context and environment in which SusChem works in Brussels – understand the acronyms and language used in the European Commission and Parliament. I need to get to know who the key people are - who does what. My understanding, which corresponds to my personal philosophy and gives me a high motivation, is that we are working in a highly collaborative mode whether we are talking about industry partners or European Institutions.”

Fortunately he and Ger have had some time for a handover period that has helped introduce Jacques to the world of SusChem.

Value chain
Jacques comes from an area of the Chemical industry, Performance Products, where working along the value chain is natural. “To be successful the chemical industry you cannot work in isolation,” says Jacques. “You really have to collaborate with partners – both downstream and upstream – to get the best solutions. In general within the chemical industry to get the best out of R&D you need to embrace open innovation.” He also has good experience of working in EU projects and has experienced first hand the value of pan European collaborative research.

Improving the public’s perception of chemistry and the chemical industry is also very important to Jacques. “Generally in France the chemical industry is still seen by many people as polluters - the bad guys,” says Jacques. “The image does not match reality and people do not value the industry enough. I hope that working in Cefic I can help to put chemical industry back in its right place as a genuine solution provider for societal needs.”

Ger agrees and his experience indicates things are moving in the right direction. “SusChem has made a great evolution in the last years, bringing it in much better position for public and private partners,” he says. “The industry has got a stronger profile and the current environment gives a better position for our solution provider role: and a great opportunity for SusChem.”

Platform for sustainability
Looking back Ger sees many changes during his time with SusChem. “Suschem was well established as a research platform and we could build from that,” he says. “I was impressed with how things were run but had one question: what is our impact?”

Finding out what the impact was a revelation and allowed SusChem to step up a gear and consider a wider ambition. “When the early impact analysis was done in 2009 the numbers were fantastic: €600 million worth of granted projects that were SusChem inspired in the first 18 months of FP7,” boasts Ger. “And on average we are still looking at around €300 million per year. These sorts of figures made the industry take notice of the value position of our Industry platform.”

And chemistry and the chemical industry can still do better than this. “If you look at relative contribution to GDP then our sector should get nearer one billion Euros,” claims Ger. "This level of funding would be in line with our fundamental contributions to society and help to bring the support together to create full programme proposals like in a Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) with large-scale collaborative research and elements of demonstration. Now that is real impact to my mind.”

These concepts will be important in the new framework programme (Horizon 2020) to ensure that innovation gives Europe a real competitive edge.

SusChem has moved from a pure research platform to become a research and innovation platform targeting societal needs. The chemical sector has a lot to do as the solution provider for societal challenges such as producing novel lightweight materials, improving resource and energy efficiency. Challenges such as using CO2 as a feedstock for useful products are areas where the chemical industry will be the key solution provider.

Leading collaboration
Ger is keen to highlight another change in SusChem's approach. "Previously we always stepped away from the content of projects," he says. "SusChem acted as a catalyst enabling others to build projects. Now SusChem is also involved in the process of contributing to projects and driving initiatives where necessary."

This trend is highlighted over the past four years by the willingness of Cefic and other SusChem partner organisations to make a greater content contribution to projects and programme. “This is very positive,” says Ger. “The willingness to do more than just run the technology platforms is a big plus. Cefic is now willing to become a concrete partner in projects, for example E4Water, which adds great value.”

“So change is very important," continues Ger. "It is important to regularly get a new perspective."

Jacques recognises the value of these initiatives. “SusChem is now involved with a lot of other platforms and projects: for example A4M, E4Water and of course SPIRE. The industry is an actor in all value chains: an important actor, but not the only one. This means that collaboration is essential,” he says. “And it goes beyond research. To do good research, get good results, to set up a pilot line is useful but how does this translate into jobs in the EU? That is the essential question today.”

Ger agrees. “Public engagement to cross the so-called innovation ‘valley of death’ is key to address societal challenges, which are excellent growth creation opportunities and what we are doing is important here,” he believes. “This will ensure we achieve something truly sustainable and again this means that we need to know what is the impact. We need to be able to demonstrate that we are creating a sustainable future. We must be able to demonstrate the capability to generate jobs by 2020.”

Both Jacques and Ger are enthusiastic about the role of the platform leading open innovation in the chemical industry. “This is an area of great future interest for the industry,” concludes Ger. “At present a lot of people talk about open innovation, but not many actually do it. SusChem has a huge potential role to promote open innovation.”

You can contact Jacques Komornicki at the SusChem secretariat.

The Aarhus Declaration

The Declaration signed on 21 June in Aarhus, Denmark was the climax of the Industrial Technologies 2012 conference and represents a major commitment by industry to support European research and innovation activities for the common good of European society and its citizens. The declaration was formulated and signed by a range of industrial partners, including SusChem on behalf of the proposed PPP SPIRE consortium, and we reprint the text in full below.

Please feel free to forward the declaration to colleagues and other interested parties. To find more information on the declaration and SusChem activities to achieve its aims and objectives, please contact the SusChem secretariat.

Declaration at the Industrial Technologies 2012 Conference

“We, the undersigned, represent globally competitive industrial sectors employing over 19 million people in Europe. Our members are committed to join forces with the public sector to significantly contribute to European recovery and to address the challenges facing European society. This is a matter of great urgency. The European economy is stagnant. Unemployment in the EU-27 countries stands at over 10% as of April 2012. Significant and sustainable improvements in economic growth and employment are required.

The EU 2020 strategy demonstrates that this requirement is well understood, and an emphasis on mobilising EU policies to support growth and strengthen job creation is welcome. In order to succeed in the light of intensified global competition a significant effort on not only research, but innovation is needed.

Significant public support for industrial innovation has enabled manufacturing in the US to add 160 000 jobs since 2009, and to maintain this growth significant funding for industrial innovation has been committed via their recovery package. China’s Innovation 2020 plan will see it invest heavily in research and development in High End Manufacturing and Advanced Materials, whilst continuing to spend heavily on infrastructure.

The Opportunity
To address this challenge, we must have companies and industries which are able to thrive in global markets, thereby increasing employment in Europe. Europe cannot compete by compromising on labour costs and less strict environmental protection; nor can it change the restricted nature of its budgets, especially in these challenging times.

Our belief is that innovative products and processes provide the only sustainable way for our industries to thrive in global competition and to continue to create jobs in Europe.

This is an area in which Europe has great potential. We know that Europe benefits from having an exceptionally strong technology base. The European industrial ecosystem has integrated value chains which include a healthy mix of globally leading companies and an extensive network of SMEs, assuring the necessary set of competencies to compete for leadership and excellence.

The Industrial Technologies conference has demonstrated what is meant by industrial innovation:

• Transforming factories through intelligent automation and integrating factories into smart business networks
• Developing new technologies to accelerate the implementation of energy efficient solutions in our building stock, enabling new business models and value propositions for citizens
• Building competitive process industries with exceptional resource efficiency, with value chain coverage to address the sustainable manufacturing requirements in Europe.
• Ensuring our mobility system becomes more sustainable

Realising this vision requires action and commitment from all partners, public and private.

Public Private Partnerships for Research and Innovation

A better orientated partnership between Industry and Research
We will work closely with the research community, to develop innovations which can be applied in new products and services, and we commit to an open dialogue and responsible partnerships with research centres and universities, to communicate our needs and to be open to new technological opportunities. The most successful outcomes will often occur as a result of collaboration, across research and industry, but also across disciplines: Europe can build from clustering the key value chain players and create a global competitive advantage from this, through such a collaborative approach.

European industry will continue to maintain the high quality of its research base, and therefore the emphasis on excellence is welcomed. This also requires a strategic partnership from the research community to take research closer to market introduction by working on applied research and prototypes.

Public support and investment
Governments at European and national level play a critical role in funding research and innovation in areas where the level of the challenges and market uncertainties make it difficult or impossible for companies or consortia to undertake such projects alone. This requires funding programmes to be structured in a way which enables companies to participate, with faster decision making and by reducing the administrative burden.

We also strongly believe that, to make innovation happen in Europe, public engagement must go further, to design favourable, consistent and coordinated framework policies and fund activities that, whilst closer to market, are still risky and knowledge-intensive, such as piloting and demonstrations.

The overall role of public as incubator specifically where breakthroughs on societal challenges are required must be incorporated in this overall endeavour and therefore policy engagement is required in addition to funding initiatives.

Industrial Commitment
Industry's role is to participate as a partner in this collaborative research and innovation and to ensure that successful joint demonstrations are followed by commercial investment in Europe into new products and processes, which will also trigger job creation.

With this requirement well recognised, our industries are ready to enter into joint programmes and investments to develop, implement and deploy innovative solutions that will secure the sustainability and competitiveness of European industry along with the highly skilled jobs that it provides.

Investing our finances, resources, knowledge and skills will represent our strong and determined commitment to this undertaking, and we foresee that our own investment in Europe will provide an important leverage to that of the public sector and have an impact on growth, competitiveness and jobs."

The declaration was supported and signed by the following four parties in Aarhus, Denmark:

Ignacio Calvo
Vice-President, Energy Efficient Buildings Association (E2BA) on behalf of the Energy Efficient Buildings European Initiative (E2B EI).

Massimo Mattucci
Chairman, European Factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA)
Klaus Sommer
Chairman of the Board, SusChem, representing the Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) consortium

Wolfgang Steiger
Chairman, European Green Cars Initiative

Endorsement
In addition three organisations representing European material research societies and the wider community of academic and industrial researchers and innovators supported the commitements expressed in the document and were willing to share in achieving its goals of a more competitve and sustainable industrial economy in Europe.

The organisations are:

Rodrigo Martins
President, European Materials Research Society

Ehrenfried Zschech
President of the Federation of European Materials Societies (FEMS)

Marco Falzetti
Chairman of the Steering Committee of EuMaT (the European Technology Platform for Advanced Engineering Materials and Technologies)

SusChem commits to lead Europe out of crisis!

Today, the European Technology & Innovation Platform for Sustainable Chemistry (SusChem), underlined its commitment to lead European growth through innovation initiatives, by its engagement with the bold declaration by European manufacturing industry to support innovation and address the societal and economic challenges faced by the European Union. The declaration was the climax of the European Commission’s Industrial Technologies 2012 Conference that took place in Aarhus, Denmark where SusChem took a leading role.

The declaration was signed by major industrial sectors employing over 19 million people in Europe: industries involved in initiatives such as Green Cars, Sustainable construction and Factories of the Future. The declaration outlines a path to revitalise the European economy through realising the full innovative potential of industrial technologies such as the chemical and biotechnology sectors.

“SusChem has built a track record of connecting key industrial partners and offering technologies and products that are vital to many industries,” said SusChem Board chairman and Senior Vice-President Bayer Technology Services Dr. Klaus Sommer, who signed the declaration on behalf of the Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) PPP consortium. “This very specific role across numerous value chains makes us forefront contributors in major European innovation initiatives such as urban living, water, resource and energy efficiency, and raw materials.”

A proposal for huge positive impact on growth and jobs

SusChem is a leading proposer of one of the first innovation-driven Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) to be developed in the European Union: the Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) initiative. This cross-sectorial proposal unites all major process industries and aims to reduce fossil energy intensity in industrial processes by up to 30% and reduce non-renewable, primary raw material use by 20%. SPIRE was the main focus of the ‘Resource Efficient Process Industries’ session at the Industrial Technologies 2012 conference and this SusChem inspired initiative could have a huge positive impact on European growth and jobs.

To download the SusChem press release, click here.

2012 SusChem Event builds Innovation Momentum

SusChem 2012 was a resounding success. Well over 200 participants enjoyed two days of discussions and debate on future SusChem strategy and heard about progress in priority innovation activities including resource efficiency, water, critical raw materials, smart cities and education. New initiatives were launched and delegates left with a clear understanding of SusChem’s commitement to Europe’s priorities and renewed enthusiasm for the challenges ahead. A summary video of the stakeholder event can be viewed on YouTube.

The next year will be important for SusChem, sustainable chemistry and Europe as the scope and direction of Horizon 2020 and our portfolio of innovation initiatives are discussed and decided.

Summing up the two-day event Klaus Sommer, chairman of the SusChem board, stated: “SusChem has achieved excellent recognition with European institutions. We have good momentum in all our activities and a fantastic opportunity to shape our own and Europe’s future.”

The main conference session on day one had been opened with a supportive message from Prof Jerzy Buzek, MEP who conveyed his strong belief that the “real remedy [to the current economic crisis] will be found through research, development, and applied innovation and the chemical sector will play here a leading role.” He thought SusChem and other technology platforms held a key role in identifying the right ideas and ensuring that EU funds are allocated in the most appropriate manner. The full text of Prof. Buzek's message can be read here.

New initiatives

At the start of the event the 11th full SusChem National Technology Platform (NTP) was formally initiated with the launch of SusChem Belgium.

The 10th Stakeholder also saw the launch of a significant new Education initiative – ‘Educate to Innovate’ - that seeks to exploit innovation outputs from SusChem’s research and innovation projects to help enhance the innovation skills of future generations of scientists and engineers.

Sommer described the education initiative in his summary as: “an opportunity to introduce concepts of sustainability, social skills and entrepreneurship as a mind set and new paradigm into higher education.”

Workshops and plenary sessions throughout the meeting covered the four main innovation initiatives that SusChem is involved with. The road ahead and main issues were discussed. In particular for the proposed SPIRE Resource Efficiency Public-Private-Partnership had been the subject of a Dinner Debate on the evening of the first day with supportive messages from industry, public authorities and the Commission.

Strategy

On day one SusChem board member Rodney Townsend had had presented the new SusChem strategy initiative to move SusChem towards a European Technology and Innovation Platform (ETIP). On the second day he summed up initial feedback from stakeholders on proposals.

This was generally positive, but there were calls for greater clarity on economic considerations and a clearer definition of innovation. Also there were queries about how to set criteria to define sustainability and suggestion to include regional networks and standardisation into SusChem thinking. Issues such as how collaborative activities can be continued beyond the pre-competitive stage, relationships between large and small companies, and investment, merger and acquisition will all feed into the developing strategy.

Communication

Concluding the conference Sommer discussed increased stakeholder involvement in SusChem activities. He saw a need to improve communications with our National Platform network and ensure their alignment with activities on the European level. Discussion and debate between stakeholders was important in shaping policies and more time for this needed to be included in stakeholder meetings.

Sommer also promised a regular email newsletter to SusChem stakeholders to ensure everyone was up-to-date on the status of our initiatives in what was likely to be a dynamic year ahead. And he stressed that stakeholders should not hold back from sending their feedback and input to SusChem at any time – multiple channels were available (twitter, email, this blog etc) – and all input was appreciated.

Next SusChem events

SusChem will be participating strongly in the European Commission’s Industrial Technologies 2012 conference and exhibition in Aarhus, Denmark from 19 – 21 June.

The next SusChem event will be the FP7 Brokerage event on 18 September in Brussels. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Photos from #SusChem2012

The 10th SusChem Stakeholder event on 17 and 18 April was filled with interesting and inspiring sessions. Here we present a small selection of photos from the event. Lots more images can be found on the SusChem website and we aim to upload all presentations in the near future.

Delegates started with a coffee before an official launch of SusChem Belgium NTP and a welcome message from Prof Jerzy Buzek, MEP.

Ger Spork (above) of the SusChem secretariat at Cefic was the master of ceremonies for the day.

The chairman of the SusChem board Klaus Sommer of Bayer TS told the stakeholder audience that 'the future is based on chemistry'. He is pictured (above) being interviewed by Euractiv. Euractiv has produced a series of videos from the event that are available on the Euractiv website and across SusChem communication platforms in the near future.



"That's about the size of it" says Mike Pitts of the UK's CIKTN gave an entertaining and informative presentation on Critical Raw Materials on Day 1 of the stakeholder seminar. He will also feature in one of the Euractiv video interviews. Mike has already blogged his presentation here.

Rudolf Strohmeier is Deputy Director General of the European Commission's DG Research & Innovation. He made a number of interventions and presentations during the stakeholder meeting calling for a clear private commitement to the forthcoming innovation initiatives.

 

SusChem: 2011 Achievements, 2012 Actions

2011 was an extremely active year for SusChem. The technology platform was at the centre of the chemical community’s work to lead innovation and boost competitiveness in Europe. The efforts of SusChem stakeholders during the International Year of Chemistry have set a sound basis for continuing success during 2012. SusChem News talked to recently appointed chairman of the SusChem board Dr. Klaus Sommer (right) about his highlights of 2011 and what SusChem needs to do in 2012.

SusChem News: Dr. Sommer, how do you see SusChem’s progress during 2011?

KS: During 2011, SusChem further increased its visibility and its effectiveness by defining positions for the Chemical and Biotechnology Industry with respect to many programmes and projects based on European Commission funding.

In particular, SusChem and its partners have established the basis for four major innovation initiatives in the areas of process efficiency, water, raw materials and smart cities that we feel can make a major contribution to strengthening the competitiveness of Europe.

Innovation has now become a major part of SusChem work, in addition to our traditional role of facilitating and promoting the chemical and biotechnology research agenda in the EU.

SusChem News: What are SusChem’s priorities for 2012?

KS: SusChem is thinking already established within the scope of the next EU Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation: Horizon 2020. In areas such as the Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) and Industrial Technologies SusChem has a great opportunity to ensure the central science – chemistry – is at the heart of the programme calls currently being defined by the European Commission.

SusChem will support policy makers to make Horizon 2020 an effective initiative to support sustainable growth for Europe. In particular we will continue work with our partners on the innovation initiatives on “SPIRE - Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency”, “Water Efficient Europe”, “Raw Materials for a Modern Society” and “Smart Cities”. These will set our priorities for the near- and mid-term.

SusChem News: What is the importance of SPIRE PPP proposal?

KS: The SPIRE proposal pulls together input from 15 European Technology Platforms and Associations and is therefore broadly based on the input from across many process industries in Europe. These industries represent about 20% of Europe’s production and provide 6.8 million jobs. It also focusses on the complete value chain from (bio-based) raw materials through processes, end products and recycling. If ultimately successful, this PPP can be a very significant platform for driving innovation in the chemical and other process industries so we continue to gather support from the European Commission, the European Parliament and national institutions.

SusChem News: What other areas will SusChem be active in?

KS: In addition to the focus on our four innovation initiatives we will continue to facilitate the chemical community’s input to FP7 during 2012. Our brokerage events during 2011 proved to be more popular than ever and showed the relevance of the calls to our stakeholders. We anticipate that our events in 2012 will prove to be as popular and useful.

2012 is International Year of Sustainable Energy for All and European Year of Water and SusChem will be contributing to activities in these two areas during the year. Both are highly relevant to our innovation activities.

A major activity will be our 10th Stakeholder event that takes place in April in Brussels. Its theme will be ‘Partnering for Sustainable Innovation through Chemistry’ and will emphasize SusChem’s collaborative innovation initiatives and bring stakeholders up to date on progress with our programmes.

SusChem News: Are there new SusChem communication initiatives?

KS: We will launch a new SusChem website in February with enhanced functionality and systems in place to ensure that it is always up to date. It is important that news about and from SusChem is available to all interested parties and delivered in a timely manner, therefore we will also be publishing regular SusChem e-newsletters. The SusChem News blog and twitter feeds will remain important parts of our news dissemination and we aim to develop further new tools during 2012.

A significant priority for the SusChem board is to enhance our communications with our stakeholders and the rest of the world. SusChem has been working very hard during the International Year of Chemistry 2011 and it is vitally important that all our stakeholders know what is happening – this is especially important at Member State level.

I believe that our efforts to date and through 2012 will be critical not only to the future well-being of the chemical and industrial biotechnology communities in Europe, but also for the quality of life for all citizens. It is important that chemistry makes its case clearly and coherently – emphasizing the benefits that chemistry brings to everyone’s daily lives and how we can provide solutions for current societal problems.

SusChem News: How would you summarize your main message for 2012?

KS: Europe needs to be more innovative to regain competitiveness and rise to the grand challenges facing society. Sustainable chemistry – SusChem thinking - is a critical element in ensuring that we can achieve these objectives. The important transition for 2012 is to make sure that SusChem thinking becomes SusChem doing – to translate our thoughts into large-scale concrete actions that can make a real difference. To do this requires wide-scale cooperation and participation. We all have a part to play to create this success and I look forward to working with SusChem stakeholders to shape and implement our initiatives.