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Thursday 28 October 2010

New Chairman of SusChem announced

Dr. Paul-Joël Derian has succeeded Prof. Rodney Townsend as Chairman of the board of SusChem – the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry. Prof. Townsend will remain on the SusChem management board.

Dr. Derian is group vice president for research and development at Rhodia and has been a member of the SusChem board for a number of years. He is also chair of SusChem’s Material Work Group.

“It is a great honour for me to have been elected as Chairman of SusChem following the excellent job that has been done by my predecessors Rodney Townsend, Alfred Oberholz and Emmo Meijer to promote sustainable chemistry across Europe,” said Dr. Derian.

Dr. Derian outlined his priorities for SusChem: to continue to identify and pursue key elements of the SusChem research agenda and to accelerate the adoption of innovation along the chemical value chain by enhanced collaboration.

He also stressed the need for SusChem to help facilitate the understanding of the value of innovation by the public through increased transparency from industry and better communication.

Leading role
“SusChem has made amazing progress in the last couple of years through initiatives such as its network of national platforms across Europe,” said Dr. Derian. “But we need to continue to form our own Innovation Union to work with other platform so they can understand how chemistry can contribute to their innovation. We need to work with politicians so they perceive chemistry not as a problem, but a solution to the challenges that Europe currently faces.”

“The maturity that SusChem has achieved can enable us to lead large innovation programmes with downstream industries in the EU,” continued Dr Derian. “We have the key enabling technologies to solve their problems.”

SusChem – New Generation
Dr. Derian is also looking to enlarge the pool of talented people who contribute to SusChem. “A large number of engaged, dedicated and creative people have helped SusChem achieve what it has to date,” said Dr. Derian. “But we need a new generation to make their contribution: to mobilize a younger generation of passionate people towards our goals for sustainable chemistry in Europe.”

A video interview with new SusChem chairman Dr. Derian is available on the SusChem website or view it below.



SusChem board
The current membership of the board of SusChem is:

Dr. Paul-Joël Derian, chairman
Prof. Matthias Beller
Ms. Martina Bianchini
Dr. Andreas Förster
Prof. Rüdiger Iden
Dr. Gernot Klotz
Mr. Philippe Lavielle
Dr. Fernando Moreno
Dr. Peter Nagler
Prof. Wim Soetaert
Dr. Klaus Sommer
Prof. Rodney Townsend
Prof. Louis Vertegaal
Dr. Marcel Wubbolts

Biographies for all SusChem board members can be found on the SusChem website.

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