Innovation

Societal needs require robust innovation: Europe and the world are in critical need of more and faster innovation that will make it possible to ease the current pressure on natural resources and on the environment.

Europe’s innovation capability will determine whether it can continue having a role in a changing world that is being shaped by the rising economic prominence of the Asian continent and major social and ecological transition worldwide.  Precisely because of its outstanding ability to generate innovation, the chemical sector is of major strategic, economic and social importance to Europe.

Innovation requires brainpower, education and skills. The chemical industry has to constantly attract the best talent to keep our industry at the forefront of cutting edge product development.  Cefic has been mapping out the skills needed to meet innovation and sustainability requirements and providing input to education programmes at European schools and universities.

Innovation requires working together through the value chain that includes customers and downstream users. Joining up people in the supply chain leads not only to innovation but also to success in the market place. Successful join-up requires meeting with customers and providers, from technical or regulatory areas or from marketing or research and development levels.  Industries in Europe and elsewhere develop better ways of doing things by understanding together the new needs of the market.

The SusChem platform is a prime example of a European public-private cooperation project that is furthering innovation throughout the value chain. SusChem uses visionary projects to showcase the full-chain approach to innovation. The Smart Energy Home, for example, is a project that is developing energy-saving home design solutions based on cross-industry collaboration.

Cefic also uses SusChem as a vehicle to coordinate various industrial sectors active in nanotechnology. Such cross-sector collaboration, involving multi-disciplinary expert teams, is giving birth to important research projects that may provide solutions to present-day energy challenges, such as lightweight materials for construction and transport, new material designs and breakthroughs in diagnostics and healthcare.
But successful innovation requires political will if new technologies and innovative products are to be brought to the market.

This will allow our industry to enhance its global position and help it face growing international competition.