LANXESS steps up research and development

2009 research and development budget of specialty chemicals group up 10 percent

15-Jun-2009 - Germany

specialty chemicals group LANXESS AG is stepping up its research and development activities. Around 200 experts from the company presented their latest projects at the company’s second Innovation Day. “Innovation is an essential prerequisite if the company is to achieve sustainable long-term success, especially in these difficult economic times. That’s why we’ve increased this year’s investment budget to around EUR 110 million, up 10 percent on 2008,” states LANXESS AG Board of Management member Werner Breuers, stressing the importance of research and development to the company. Research expenditure at LANXESS had already been increased significantly in 2008.

New central “Innovation” group function

At the beginning of this year, the specialty chemicals group also created an independent “Innovation” group function for centralized coordination of its research and development activities. In close cooperation with LANXESS’s manufacturing business units, the roughly 30-strong team acts as an “innovation hub” for the development of optimized production processes, new products and new applications.

110 research projects completed in 2008

The Innovation Day forms part of a campaign focusing on research and development at LANXESS. With targeted investments, the specialty chemicals group has completed 110 research and development projects in the past year alone, and there are around 100 projects in the pipeline at present. Over 450 employees are currently working on new ideas at the specialty chemical group’s research centers around the globe. This figure is 11 percent higher than in 2007 and is set to rise still further. Most of LANXESS’s research and development departments are still located in Europe – mainly in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy. These account for almost 350 employees. The number of new patents granted quadrupled between 2006 and 2008, and the Group currently holds around 6,300 patents in total. The top priority for innovations at LANXESS is their cost-effectiveness. “Our aim is to translate all innovations and product enhancements into marketable products as quickly as possible. We are planning to have 80 percent of our current R&D projects ready for the market within two years,” explains Breuers.

Cooperation with leading universities and institutes

LANXESS works with numerous universities and research institutes worldwide – including the MIT in Boston, the University of Shanghai and the Aachen University of Technology. This gives the company access to fundamental research in all the relevant disciplines such as catalysis, material research and nanotechnology. Membership of many different research organizations and committees is also an established part of the LANXESS culture of innovation. For example, the specialty chemicals group is working with the Innovation Ministry’s working group to pool innovation resources in North Rhine-Westphalia, with the VCI (German Chemical Industry Association), and with CLIB2021 (the Cluster for Industrial Biotechnology).

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/102042/lanxess-steps-up-research-and-development.html