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CHEMELOT NOW
[EDIT:
Sittard-Geleen, February 28]
Chemelot business development manager, Frank Schaap says that he expects the Chemelot research and business campus in Sittard-Geleen, South Limburg to produce Nobel Prize winners.
European excellence
Chemelot has a research and business campus with a capacity for 1,500 cutting edge researchers and home to top-flight start-ups, research organizations, high end R&D enabling service providers and related businesses.
The knowledge and infrastructure to achieve economies of scale, to facilitate patent applications and to provide business support are already in place and the campus has back-up from a cross-section of European/global research excellence.
Companies at Chemelot are, of course, working closely with other educational institutions in the Meuse-Rhine cross-border Euroregion, including: one of Europe’s top technological universities (the RWTH at Aachen; the universities of Liège and Hasselt) and Europe’s biggest research center (4,000 researchers) at Jülich across the border in Germany. They also work with the University of Maastricht and South Limburg’s Hogeschool Zuyd.
Europe’s biggest
Chemelot is a 2,000-acre chemical innovation community with state-of the-art process/ lab facilities for the chemicals, rubber and plastics sector – one of the biggest in Europe. Geared up to play a leading role in Europe’s chemical industry, to point the way to the future in new materials – it has pared down its costs and is now prepared for the competition of the global marketplace.
Harvard graduate Sarah Reiver, a business development specialist working for DSM Biomedical materials on the Chemelot research & business campus, compares the atmosphere with that of Boston. She says, ‘It’s a melting pot of expertise with people from all over the world. The one thing they have in common is that they are all high flyers.’
iPod, Nokia and Rolls Royce/Airbus clients
The Chemelot community consists now of more than 60 companies including a good half dozen world leaders. Your iPod or Nokia cell phone or the Rolls Royce engines for the new 380 airbus, all use DSM performance materials developed and produced here, on Chemelot. Dyneema — the world’s strongest fiber — which provides a great deal more than bulletproof vests or cockpit doors was invented here too.
So there is a strong focus on performance materials. Sekisui S-LEC interlayer film for laminated glass that shields you not only from UV radiation but also sound and heat, has become a must in the automotive and construction markets. It comes from Chemelot. Another world-class petrochemicals giant, Sabic Europe, with world leader ambitions benefits from the synergy advantages at Chemelot and its research & business campus.
Biomedical developments
The Province of Limburg stands four-square behind this growing intellectual power house and DSM Biomedical Materials seems to be coming up with new ideas every day; for example, biomedical materials of high-grade polyethylene are being used in artificial hips and knees. DSM and Harland Medical Systems also recently decided to cooperate on customer-driven programs, using DSM’s proprietary hydrophilic coating technology and Harland’s automated coating equipment and coating application services.
Chemelot MD Ger Wagemans lists some names
The companies that recently have come to Chemelot include: Van Gansewinkel (waste control), Intertek (analytical services), DHV (civil engineering and park management), Arcadis-Acumen (facilities) and Stork (campus technical support). They have come partly because of outsourcing, but also because they believe in ongoing Euroregional growth. Other companies that have a Chemelot home base are Loetoning, Container Terminal Stein – which provides an extra logistical asset. Hexion Inks and Adhesive Resins, Coservices, MCC, Ipecunia, Nano Specials, Basic Pharma, Polyscope, Oxford Performance Materials, Kriya Materials. This makes for a broad spectrum of companies operating in the field of materials and associated life sciences, as well as their strategic partners. It is pointing to the future.
Acceleration agenda
As the Province of Limburg (NL) has concrete plans to accelerate the developments of its clusters of strength in the “Acceleration agenda”. The development of the research & business campus on Chemelot is a natural agenda project. The innovative power of the chemical industry at Chemelot accelerates innovation in the other clusters of strength on the agenda too; in High Tech systems & materials, Health, Care & Cure, Agro-Food and New Energy – which is what the program is all about.
http://www.chemelot.nl
http://www.versnellingsagenda.nl
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