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.

Sustainable chemistry solving the innovation puzzle

Innovation – a simple concept and an essential one for the chemical industry is the message of a recent special report in ICIS Chemical Business that featured SusChem and the SPIRE PPP.  Both Cefic’s Executive Director, Research and Innovation Pierre Barthélemy and Loredana Ghinea, executive director of SPIRE are interviewed in the article by ICIS editor John Baker.

In his interview Pierre Barthélemy (right) emphasises the commitment of the chemical industry to innovation to increase industry’s contribution to GDP and address global societal challenges like climate change and an ageing population. “Addressing these issues is something we can do only if we innovate,” he says.

Pierre also talked about the chemical industry’s role in improving resource efficiency through developing better materials and processes and stimulating collaboration along value chains.

SusChem
Pierre points out that the industry’s recognition of the need to invest more in innovation collectively was a major driver behind the SusChem initiative. In particular the platform has helped to identify and develop major public-private-partnerships (PPPs) – specifically the SPIRE PPP (see below) and the BioBased Industries Joint Undertaking.

He also highlights SusChem’s work in progressing initiatives for the use and valorisation of carbon dioxide. These innovations have the potential to provide opportunities for new chemical feedstocks and for chemical energy storage, he explains.

SPIRE PPP
The two key goals for the PPP ‘Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency’ (SPIRE) are spelled out in its title and also require innovation. As well as delivering environmental benefits energy and resource intensity are two prime costs in the process industries. “There is a drive to innovate with new technologies that deal with these costs,” says Loredana Ghinea.

SPIRE aims to address three fundamental challenges in Europe:

• The urgency to create growth and increase competitiveness in a global market
• The need to rejuvenate the European process industry
• The imperative to reduce resource and energy inefficiency and the environmental impact of industrial activity

SPIRE has its own strategy for research and innovation. “We are already attracting high interest and the first very promising projects have begun this year, with 18 now agreed and up and running,” says Loredana (left).

The SPIRE PPP is clearly of importance to the chemical sector with 27 chemical companies already involved. “We are bringing companies together to discuss and identify strategic innovation priorities and actions,” she states.

You can read the full article here.

Presenting the ICIS Innovation Awards 2014

Today (17 October 2014) the winners of this year’s ICIS Innovation Awards have been announced with Huntsman Textile Effects being chosen as the overall winner for 2014. The judging panel for the 2014 awards included SusChem board member Peter Nagler of Evonik and SusChem coordinator at Cefic: Jacques Kormonicki.

Huntsman’s AVITERA SE poly-reactive dyes for cotton and cotton blends were judged to be a significant scientific advance, and one that goes a long way to answering the textile industry’s sustainability challenge in terms of water, energy and waste reductions. The process cuts water and energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 50% and salt consumption by 25%.

The Huntsman entry also won the category for Innovation with the Best Benefit to Environment or Sustainability that is sponsored by U.S. Chemicals, LLC.

In their deliberations the judges were looking for innovations that were at or close to commercialisation and that fulfilled a need or created a new need or market. The innovations also needed to be creative and relevant to the market.

The Awards, sponsored overall by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and with category sponsorship from U.S. Chemicals, LLC, recognise outstanding technological and business innovation in the global chemical industry.

Warm glow of Innovation
The award for best product innovation went to Solvay, for its Emana polyamide fibres that contains an additive that converts the wearer’s body heat into physiologically beneficial far-infrared radiation. The winning entry, developed in Brazil, was deemed to have a strong scientific element to it and innovative marketing.

Jacques Korminicki of Cefic said: “It looks like a great innovation and a strong marketing opportunity.”

Honeywell UOP, with INEOS and Total, were awarded the best process innovation award for their advanced methanol-to-olefins process. This award category, which was reintroduced to the ICIS awards after a couple of year’s absence, was judged to be very timely with migration of global petrochemical feedstock from naphtha to coal and natural gas.

Finally the best innovation by an SME award was made to Argex Titanium for a novel route to titanium dioxide pigment.

The judging panel also awarded Clariant a special mention in the Best Process Innovation category, for its Heat Generating Material for use in on-purpose olefin production using the Catofin process.

John Baker, ICIS editor and organiser of the Awards, commented that: “This year the Awards attracted a near-record entry, showcasing a wide range of excellent innovation across the chemical sector. All the winners demonstrate not only that innovation is well and truly alive in the chemical industry but that this innovation brings benefits not only to companies and their customers but the environment as well. And it helps the sustainability of the business of chemicals.”

Full descriptions of all the winning entries, and interviews with the sponsors, can be found on the ICIS website and a special ICIS Chemical Business supplement on the awards and the winners can be accessed on-line here.

What are the ICIS awards
The awards are open to any chemical company or collaborative effort between industry and academia anywhere in the World. The judging panel looks 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.

In 2014 there were four prize categories:

• Best Product Innovation
• Best Process Innovation
• Best Innovation by a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME)
• Innovation with Best Benefit for the Environment or Sustainability

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

Berlin BIO-TIC Workshop: Use of IB in Bio-Surfactants

BIO-TIC is organising a ‘bio-business workshop’ on the use of industrial biotechnology (IB) in bio-surfactants on 3 September 2014 in Berlin. This will be the first of a series of five workshops looking at product segments and applications in the bioeconomy that BIO-TIC have identified as having significant potential for boosting the competitiveness of European industry and benefiting society by 2030.

The workshop will take place on 3 September at the Westin Grand Hotel, Berlin and will precede the Third ICIS European Surfactants Conference as a satellite event. Registration will be opening soon.

The objectives of the workshop are to:

• identify technological, non-technological and market hurdles for the uptake of industrial biotechnology in bio-surfactants
• develop recommendations and solutions to overcome the identified hurdles 
• contribute to the development, testing and fine-tuning of the BIO-TIC roadmaps 
• bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes
• collect data to develop draft indicators to measure the socio-economic and environmental impact of IB and the use of renewables-based products in the European Union. 

Why attend the workshop?
Input from the market and experts in industry and research are vital to build a basis for BIO-TIC’s roadmaps. Therefore, the BIO-TIC team is working to engage with multiple stakeholders across different value chains with activities on a range of technological domains from chemistry and engineering to health and the environment.

The idea is to share knowledge with experts and receive recommendations. BIO-TIC has organised a series of “bio-workshops” across Europe, which started in June 2013 and will continue to the end of 2014. The initial workshops were held at a regional level and addressed all business cases. In 2014, BIO-TIC is holding one workshop per business case at a European level. All bio-business workshops will be announced on the BIO-TIC website.

As the bio-surfactants workshop will precede the 3rd ICIS European Surfactants Conference this means that major experts will already be there, increasing the effectiveness and the participation in the workshop and the benefits of attending both events.

Attendance at the workshop will be free of charge but prior registration via the BIO-TIC website will be required. Details of registration will be announced soon on the BIO-TIC website.

For more information on the BIO-TIC bio-surfactants workshop download the workshop flyer or contact the BIO-TIC secretariat.

More details on the 3rd ICIS European Surfactants Conference: - Understanding the key market drivers, trends, challenges and regulations impacting the region’ that takes place on 4 and 5 September can be found on the conference website. You can download a brochure for the ICIS event here.

What is BIO-TIC?
Funded by the European Commission, BIO-TIC was launched, as an FP7 project, with the aim to establish an overview of the opportunities and barriers to biotechnology innovation and propose approaches to address them.

Modern use of industrial biotechnology (IB) is critical in a bio-based economy. Deploying the full potential of biotech innovation will enable the European industry to deliver high-value products to consumers and create new commercial opportunities. New feedstock demands will lead to synergies amongst SMEs and large industrial partners. New technological developments will boost European export of technology and facilities by bringing some of Europe’s top sectors together: chemical industry, engineering and renewables.

However to date, major hurdles continue to hamper the full exploitation of biotechnology in Europe. These hurdles may vary from technological bottlenecks to limited availability of venture capital and fragmented policy frameworks.

BIO-TIC seeks to define product segments and applications that promise significant potential for Europe’s industry and society by 2030. We have now identified five major “bio-business cases” which are EU-competitive and have the potential to introduce cross-cutting technology ideas.

These are:

• Bio-plastics PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates) and PLA (polylactic acid)
• Building blocks 
• Bio-fuels 
• Bio-surfactants 
• CO2-based chemicals 

Based on these business cases, we are developing three in-depth “bio-roadmaps”. These will focus on the market potential, R&D priorities and non-technological hurdles of IB innovation. In particular, the market roadmap will provide market projections upto 2030. The technology roadmap will focus on setting R&D priorities and identifying needs for pilot and demonstration of plant activities. Last but not least, the non-technological barriers roadmap will identify regulatory and non-technological hurdles that may inhibit industrial biotech innovation reaching new market opportunities. The second draft version of the roadmaps is already online while the final version will be released in July 2015.

All BIO-TIC roadmaps, can be downloaded from our Partnering Platform. For more information about the BIO-TIC FP7 project visit our website.

ICIS Innovation Awards 2013 Result

The winners of the ICIS Innovation Awards for 2013 have been announced. The awards were launched in 2004 and celebrated their tenth anniversary this year. The overall winner is selected from the winners of five individual categories (see below) and for 2013 the winning company is the Cabot Corporation. 

“Energy efficiency and bio-based materials technologies were very much to the fore in this year’s ICIS Innovation Awards,” said John Baker of ICIS. “Of the 12 shortlisted entries, no fewer than half offered innovations in these two areas.”

The awards have grown in popularity with each succeeding year and SusChem has been proud to have contributed to the competition’s judging panels on many occasions. This year SusChem coordinator Jacques Komornicki was part of the panel.

SusChem believes that innovation is a key driver for growth and profitability in the chemical sector. And The ICIS Innovation Awards are designed to reward innovation, environmental advances and sustainability in the global chemical industry.

Smart Cities, smart materials
Cabot Corp received the award for its aerogel technology that can dramatically increase insulation in building and construction. The overall winner was unanimously selected by the judging panel of six innovation experts. The company also won the award for Innovation with Best Environmental Benefit.

Innovations like the Aerogel materials (see above - image from ICIS) developed by Cabot offer huge potential to improve the insulation values of a whole range of building materials and are typical of the type of chemical innovation that SusChem has been highlighting recently for the built environment.

Chemistry lies at the heart of the built environment in every city providing the fundamental building blocks for new advanced materials for housing such as smart coatings and insulations that are making houses, offices and factories more energy efficient and form the basis for the ‘Smart Cities’ of the future.

The Chemical Industry is already heavily engaged in this area and has offered five concrete solutions for Chemistry-based initiatives for energy efficiency in buildings, which were selected as top key innovation by city officials at the recent Smart Cities and Communities Stakeholder Platform conference.

Other category winners in the ICIS Innovation Awards 2013 were:

• Solvay Aroma Performance for Best Product Innovation for Govanil: pioneering the new reference of vanilla flavours
• Renmatix for Best Innovation by an SME with its advances in sugar conversion technology using supercritical hydrolysis to provide an economical bridge between upstream and downstream biochemicals
• Virent for Best Innovation for Sustainability with its process to convert plant sugars to paraxylene for renewable, recyclable packaging and fibres, and
• Archroma (until recently part of Clariant) for Best Business Innovation and its “One Way” sustainability service.

You can find full details of all the winning entries and the shortlisted innovations in each of the categories in a 16-page special ICIS publication celebrating the winners and chemical innovation in general.

What are the ICIS awards?
The annual awards are open to any chemical company or collaborative effort between industry and academia anywhere in the World. The judging panel looks 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.

In 2013 there were five prize categories:

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

For more information about the ICIS Chemical Business Innovation Awards visit the website or contact John Baker at ICIS.

Video outlines ICIS Innovation Awards 2013

ICIS Chemical Business has just published a video (see below) covering the ICIS Innovation Awards for 2013. The video is hosted by ICIS editor and Awards Coordinator John Baker. John outlines the history of the awards and the process for 2013. The ICIS Innovation Awards were launched in 2004 by European Chemical News and are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year. The awards have grown in popularity with each succeeding year and SusChem has been proud to have contributed to the competition’s judging panels on many occasions. This year SusChem coordinator Jacques Komornicki is part of the panel.

SusChem believes that innovation is a key driver for growth and profitability in the chemical sector. And the ICIS Innovation Awards are designed to recognise the best in chemical innovation.

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. Watch the video to find out more.

How to enter?

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 five prize categories to choose from:

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

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

To get involved this year just visit to the ICIS Awards website, select the award category you want to enter, complete the simple online application form, upload any supporting materials and click ‘submit’.

A confirmation of receipt of your entry will be sent to you by email and the closing date for entries is 3 July. A short list of entries will be published on 12 August and the winners revealed on 21 October. Good luck!

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

ICIS Innovation Awards 2013

ICIS Chemical Business has recently launched their Innovation Awards for 2013. And SusChem coordinator Dr. Jacques Komornicki will be part of the judging panel this year. The ICIS Innovation Awards were launched in 2004 by European Chemical News and are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year. The awards have grown in popularity with each succeeding year and SusChem has been proud to have contributed to their judging panels on many occasions.

Innovation is a key driver for growth and profitability in the chemical sector. And the ICIS Innovation Awards are designed to recognise the best in chemical innovation.

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.

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

Jacques (pictured left) has extensive experience of both managing international, interdisciplinary research and development projects and translating business goals into R&D objectives and planning. These are skills that will come useful in the judging process.

Jacques joined Cefic as Innovation manager and SusChem coordinator in September 2012 following an industrial career, his last position being Global R&D Director 'Oxygenated Products' at the Arkema Centre de Recherche Rhône-Alpes (CRRA) in Lyon, France.

He has a masters degree in Chemical Engineering from ESPCI Paris Tech and he gained his PhD in Chemistry at the Paris VI University in 1981 with his thesis on the “Application of Micro-Emulsions to Liquid-Liquid Metals Extraction”.

Other members of the 2013 judging panel include Dr Klaas Kruithof director of research, development and innovation at AkzoNobel’s Performance Coating business, Gianni Girotti who heads up R&D at ENI Versalis’s new green chemistry division and Dr. Neil Checker a partner at the Roland Berger consultancy – the overall sponsor of this year’s ICIS Innovation Awards.

How to enter?
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 five prize categories to choose from:

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

An overall winner will be picked from the winners of the five individual categories. In 2012 the overall winner was Dow Chemical for its INFUSE olefin block copolymers entry and 2011 saw Teijin Group win with its mass production technology for carbon-fibre reinforced composites. Will 2013 be your year for success?

To get involved this year just visit to the ICIS Awards website, select the award category you want to enter, complete the simple online application form, upload any supporting materials and click ‘submit’.

A confirmation of receipt of your entry will be sent to you by email and the closing date for entries is 3 July. A short list of entries will be published on 12 August and the winners revealed on 21 October. Good luck!

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

ICIS named media partner for SusChem Amsterdam Stakeholder event

ICIS, the chemicals and energy news and information provider, will be SusChem's media partner for the Amsterdam Stakeholder event taking place on 17 May.

The news on the ICIS partnership gives us an excuse to highlight one of our favourite fellow bloggers: John Baker, ICIS Global editor, previously editor of the long-lamented European Chemical News (now part of ICIS Chemical Business) and long-term friend of SusChem.

John's blog 'Chemicals and Innovation' covers exactly what it says on the tin with an emphasis on chemical company innovation strategies, RD&I investments, financing, people and awards. Take a look today.