Sabic, Indian institutions form chemistry research deal

Saudi Arabia’s Sabic, one of the world’s top petrochemical companies, entered into strategic collaborations with India’s Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to strengthen academic and research capabilities in the Indian chemical industry.

The agreement in this regard was signed in the presence of Surjit Kumar Chaudhary, Secretary, Chemicals & Petrochemicals and President, CIPET, Dr G Anupama, Joint Secretary, CSIR, Ministry of Science & Technology and Saudi Arabian Ambassador in Delhi Saud Mohammd Alsati.

“These partnerships, while paving the way for close collaboration with both the organisations in multiple research areas, are testimony of Sabic’s commitment to partner in the government’s ‘Make in India’ vision by strengthening the chemicals and Plastics industries’ research ecosystem in the country, boosting skills development and contributing to India’s growth story,” a press release from Sabic said.

Dr Ernesto Occhiello, Executive Vice President, Technology & Innovation said, “Collaborative projects with well-established scientific organisations and research centres are essential components of Sabic’s global research programme. As Government of India’s two top academic and research institutions, both CIPET and CSIR are natural partners for SABIC. Through these partnerships, Sabic will be able to leverage these institutions’ multidisciplinary research capabilities to achieve research excellence for Sabic that will greatly benefit the nation. It is also our desire to see that today’s collaboration will create a value-added ecosystem involving science and technology institutions, talents, industry, customers to benefit the people of India.”

Janardhanan Ramanujalu, Vice President, Saic South Asia & ANZ said, “We firmly believe that the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative rooted in the two strategic advantages of  research and human capital will be the next growth driver for India. Sabic’s strategy in India is aligned with India’s economic growth plans and we endeavour to provide customers the products, services and solutions they need in their rapid growth path. We are very proud of signing these partnerships today with India’s premier institutions”

Sabic’s Master Umbrella Advisor Programme Agreement with CIPET will leverage its expertise and state-of-the-art infrastructural facilities for an increased pace of research in specific areas of polymer processing Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing /Computer Aided Engineering and mould design for plastics and allied industries.

The collaboration agreement also supports skills development to drive industry growth through an academic research partnership that provides for an annual scholarship for Ph.D. students researching in the area of Sabic’s interest; support in designing of CIPET’s curriculum to include the latest technology developments; guest faculty from Sabic and providing a six-month internship opportunity to CIPET’s Plastic engineering students at the Sabic Technology Centre, Bengaluru, one of India’s most premier, state-of-the-art research facility.

The Master Research Alliance Agreement with CSIR paves the way for collaborative research leveraging competencies of CSIR laboratories, in particular, the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune; the Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP), Dehradun; and the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad.

CSIR has some of the best chemical laboratories in the country, focused on catalysis, polymer rheology, reaction engineering and petroleum processing amongst others. The tie-up also provides for funding to CSIR for Chemicals / Petrochemical / Polymer research in a consistent way over a period of time, as they bring in unique areas of expertise.

Sabic currently has research collaborations with IIT Mumbai -Monash in India and similar collaborations with several universities in Saudi Arabia – King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, King Saud University, King Abdulaziz University, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology – and with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, Cambridge University in the UK, the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China, ETH Zurich in Switzerland, the National Research Council in Italy and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Germany.