North Rhine–Westphalia wins out in industrial biotech

Image courtesy EuropaBio

Out of the total of €60 million that the federal government will be paying to the winners in the next five years as part of its high-tech strategy, €20 million will go to the North Rhine–Westphalia cluster and €20 million to Hamburg. Baden–Württemberg was awarded €10 million and Frankfurt and Munich €5 million apiece. In a multi-stage contest, the five winners were chosen from19 other competitors.

Last autumn the major chemicals companies Bayer, Cognis, Degussa, Henkel and Lanxess joined forces with small and medium-sized biotech companies and research institutions and universities from the state of North Rhine–Westphalia to form the Industrial Biotechnology Cluster, CLIB 2021. The aim of the 32 founding members was to define and implement research and development projects, and to attract funding from the support schemes set up by the federal government and the European Union.

The state’s Innovation Minister, Andreas Pinkwart, said, “Anyone who is looking for expert partners in white biotechnology in Europe will now look at North Rhine–Westphalia.“

Pinkwart particularly noted the spirit of innovation among the corporate partners in CLIB 2021. Like the universities, they played an active part in the excellence initiatives during the competition. “Researchers are telling us about the new impetus that collaboration across company and university boundaries has brought,” said Pinkwart.

The cluster has already identified projects worth €70 million over the next five years, and the award from the German government will enable these to be implemented more quickly. The companies involved in the cluster have also announced substantial investments.

One of the aims of the research and development projects is to produce plastics from renewable materials such as rapeseed, sugar beet, corn or wood. In addition, the partners are aiming to develop bioplastics with new properties.