On November 7, at the campus of TU\e, a CoI catalysis workshop took place, organized by VIRAN and NIOK. With about 40 participants and a high attendance from industry, the setting was very productive to make next steps to establish and shape the CoI. Community building was central to the meeting, like earlier engagement sessions in 2021 and 2022. However, this time there was significantly higher technical content.
In four industrial sessions, VIRAN members Avantium, ExxonMobil, Nobian, and Sabic outlined their strategic approach in catalysis and catalysts, and how these are positioned and utilized to contribute to the energy transition, circularity and carbon food-print reduction. Not only did this provide the audience insight into how the industrial community tackles these problems, but it also served as an appetizer for potential academic-industrial cooperations.
Peter Berben (picture) of ChemistryNL, TKI Groene Chemie en Circulariteit, gave a presentation about the Dutch government’s funding policy. This triggered a discussion of how the Catalysis CoI can help in obtaining funding for targeted research.
An outcome of the previous CoI workshop (October 2022) was a commitment of some 30 “young NIOK” members to review the current national catalysis roadmap, assess if it is still fit for purpose and make recommendations for how to proceed. A set of key questions were raised for discussion in three individual groups. In short, it was agreed that the current roadmap is outdated and the discussion converged towards a revision and amendment of the existing roadmap. To this avail, a core team was formed.
See more details in the minutes of the meeting in the CoI section of this website.
