7 December 2015 Minister Henk Kamp announced the kick off of ARC CBBC.
AkzoNobel, BASF, Shell, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Top Sector Chemistry, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and Utrecht University, the Eindhoven University of Technology and Groningen University presented their plans for setting up the new Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC).
The ARC CBBC is a national research center that continues to build on expertise within the “Gravitation” programs. Bert Weckhuysen, one of the main initiators of this new consortium: “With this initiative we wants to connect the industrial and academic strengths available in the Netherlands to work on global societal challenges in a long term collaboration.” This national research center will tackle important energy and chemistry issues associated with the growing depletion of the finite supply of raw materials.
After the opening speech of Minister Henk Kamp, one of the main initiators Prof. Bert Weckhuysen introduced ARC CBBC in a nutshell and showed the introduction movie to give the audience an idea about the importance and uniqueness of this research center. Mr. Marjan Oudeman (President, Utrecht University) talked about the importance of the center from the perspective of the universities involved. Knut Schwalenberg (Managing Director AkzoNobel, The Netherlands) and Drs. Dick Benschop (President-director Shell, The Netherlands) closed the presentations by pointing out the importance of the long term collaboration from the companies’ point of view.
