Brussels, 06/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Tuesday, the sectorial organisations for chemicals and biotechnology, CEFIC and EuropaBIO, together with the European Commission, launched a "technological platform for an environmentally friendly chemicals sector", in order to set up a sustainable public/private partnership to boost investment in research and innovation, and stimulate European competition in this sectors. The platform brings together representatives of the industry, research centres, the financial world and the regulation authorities at European level, with a view to drawing up a strategic research programme for the sector. Among the issues to be dealt with are three technological areas which are essential for Europe: industrial biotechnology, materials technology, reaction and process design, and a range of cross-cutting questions such as the environment, health and safety, education and skills, research infrastructures, and access to risk capital.
"Research is the primary source of innovation in the knowledge-intensive chemical industry and is driving the sector forward", said Commissioner Philippe Busquin, continuing: "The European chemical industry has an impressive track record of developing new products and manufacturing processes, but the challenge is to improve the transformation of laboratory ideas into new sustainable products and services to boost EU competitiveness. The EU chemical sector only spends 1.9% of its sales on R&D, less than the US (2.5%) and Japan (3%). The new platform will facilitate the establishment of public-private partnerships to address the barriers to innovation and encourage the industry to invest more in research to overcome these challenges and improve the industry's competitiveness".
The European chemical market has grown in value from 14 billion EUR in 1990 to 42 billion EUR in 2002, with some 25,000 businesses employing 1.7 million people. However, in order to maintain this growth, the sector must achieve a balance between long-term research inspired by technological progress, and short-term research dictated by the market.