Annual Report 2010 TODAY’S SCIENCE .... .... TOMORROW’S BUSINESS The art of connecting The polymer world is facing a number of challenges. There is a growth in market demand. The range and quality of techno logical options driven by modern science and technology are rapidly increasing. And there is strong pressure from society for sustainability and new technological solutions. The challenges are too broad and too complex to be addressed by a single party. The Dutch Polymer Institute truly addresses those challenges by organising polymer knowledge and connec ting polymer technologists through the value chain. Foreword ‘Today’s science, tomorrow’s business’ DPI is at a crucial juncture in its development. The changing environment calls for a change in our strategy. Our ambition is to evolve into a global Centre of Excellence in polymers and broaden our financial base. To achieve this, we will expand our partnership base by looking for partners across the entire polymer value chain and internationalising our activities, and we will continue our commitment to excellence. Top sectors Opportunities for growth Last year a new government was installed in the Netherlands DPI owes its growth in the last few years to its cooperation and the contours of a new national industry and innovation policy with mainly West European companies, but we need to expand are emerging. The present government wants to strengthen our partnership base in the coming years. The BRIC countries Dutch industry sectors that are already strong, among other (Brazil, Russia, India and China) offer particularly good prospects, things by concentrating scientific research on specific areas. because in these countries there is a huge demand for polymer Three of these ‘top sectors’ are very relevant for DPI: Chemicals, knowledge and expertise and for training facilities for research Agro Food and High Tech Systems & Materials. scientists working for companies and research institutes. There is also a clear need for closer cooperation between universities At the same time, the government has decided that, unlike in and companies in these countries. This represents an excellent previous years, no additional funds from the national gas opportunity for us to transfer our expertise and knowledge revenues will be made available for investments in research. and, in doing so, bring our partner companies into contact with This means that the financing of a research project will potential suppliers of raw materials and potential customers increasingly depend on the project’s added value for industry for their products. and industry’s willingness to co-fund it. This is very much in line with the model with which DPI has enjoyed so much At the same time, DPI’s existing corporate partners feel an success since 1996. The Dutch government has high hopes increasing need to innovate, but the global financial crisis of for public-private R&D partnerships, in which knowledge recent years has made them more cost-conscious, and this institutes (universities and research institutes) and companies cost-consciousness extends to their budgets for R&D. For jointly carry out research on topics that are relevant for DPI this means that we must focus even more sharply on industry. subjects that will help these partners to innovate and enable them to remain internationally competitive. We will continue It is clear, however, that there are far fewer resources available to pursue our proven strength: public-private cooperation in than in previous years. It is therefore crucial for DPI to be involved pre-competitive research. In our new strategic plan we describe in the ‘knowledge agendas’ that are being formulated for each of this as Track A (see box on page 23). the top sectors in the spring of 2011. We should be able to do so, based on our excellent track record in creating and organising Another way in which DPI is going to broaden its partnership base consortia and conducting research that is of strategic importance is by looking for partners in the entire polymer value chain, from for industry and for which companies are willing to pay (demand- raw material to end product. This will enable us to unlock a great driven research). deal of innovation potential. It also fits in with our desire to include more SMEs in our programme, since the polymer value In our new strategy, we have decided to broaden our horizons in chain includes many innovative SMEs. order to generate more income from partnerships with the international polymer industry and become less dependent on Forming consortia government funding. The experience that DPI has gained with consortia is increasingly proving itself in Europe. We are frequently asked to act as coordinator in forming European consortia. We are a recognised 2 Jacques Joosten Managing Director partner of the EU and are able to bring together all relevant parties, including partners in non-EU countries such as Russia. We have for example formed consortia on subjects such as nanocomposites and modelling under the seventh EU Framework Programme. But outside the EU context, too, we are capable of bringing together relevant business and research partners to form consortia. We are engaged in various new topics, including electrospinning of fine fibres, in which there is interest from companies in the plastics sector and the agro food sector. DPI’s international profile has become much more prominent recently. As a result, we are often the first choice as an initiator of new public-private partnerships. We are going to build on this strength in the coming years with Track B in our strategic plan. This track focuses on collaborations along existing value chains. In these collaborations we will benefit from the experience that we have gained over the last year from our close involvement in the Knowledge Workers Scheme established by the Dutch government. The idea behind the scheme was to prevent the economic crisis leading to a reduction in the number of research- ers in industry. The scheme enabled companies to retain their researchers by seconding them to a research institute, helped by a subsidy from the Dutch government. DPI helped 200 industrial researchers to keep their knowledge and expertise up to date. In this way, we helped prevent a ‘lost generation’. We have also chosen to employ a third track, Track C, in which we will address certain societal issues in our research agenda. We are aware that academia, industry and the government are not DPI’s only stakeholders. Some societal issues lend themselves to a solution based on polymer science and technology. To give an example: we have for several years been involved in projects in the context of the Bottom of the Pyramid, in which we try to find solutions for the challenges facing developing countries, such as housing, health and nutrition. Another example concerns a major new international problem that has emerged in recent years, one that also affects our partner companies: the ‘plastic soup’ consisting of huge quantities of plastic waste that accumulate in oceans and seas and that constitute a threat to marine flora and fauna. We have decided to mobilise our knowledge to see whether we can help find a solution. We are putting together a consortium that will concentrate on the plastic waste in the North Sea and Wadden Sea. In 2010 DPI intensified its cooperation with the DPI Value Centre. The DPI Value Centre plays a key role in identifying innovation opportunities because of its close ties with SMEs and its intimate knowledge of these companies’ specific needs. At the DPI Annual Meeting in 2010 we took stock of a large number of these needs, Martien Cohen Stuart Scientific Director Annual Report 2010 – Dutch Polymer Institute 3 for example in the construction sector, the packaging industry the impact of our work even further, we have tightened up our and the transport industry. By focusing on these concrete needs, protocols in consultation with our Scientific Reference DPI and DPI Value Centre ensure that their research remains Committee. immediately relevant for the market and that their polymer expertise leads to innovative products and solutions in the We are also taking steps to further improve the quality and use of shortest possible time. All this is in line with the new Dutch our patents. We will start using the patents that are not assigned government’s objective of making SMEs benefit more from to our DPI partners to generate new business and expand existing scientific research. DPI and DPI Value Centre already have a lot business. It was for this purpose that we created an ‘option of experience in that regard. scheme’ with the DPI Value Centre. We will actively promote this scheme in the market to increase the effectiveness and efficiency Scientific excellence of our patents. DPI’s ambition is to grow into an International Centre of Excellence for polymer science and technology. This means that All in all, 2010 was an exciting and eventful year. This annual we devote a lot of attention to the quality of our research output. report provides a good overview of the results we achieved. The growing journal impact factor (4.43 in 2010) and high citation However, 2011 will be a crucial year for DPI. A lot will depend impact factor (2.19 in 2009) of our publications prove that we on the outcome of the discussions on the ‘top sectors’ in the are moving in the right direction. To increase both the quality and Netherlands and the position DPI is able to secure in them. DPI team – From left to right: Peter Nossin, Richard van den Hof, Christianne Bastiaens, Peter Kuppens, Martien Cohen Stuart, Jan Stamhuis, Johan Tiesnitsch, John van Haare, Renée Hoogers, Miranda Heuvelmans and Jacques Joosten.