BASF adds to its academic collaborations with financial backing from the local authorities.
BASF is one of the growing number of large companies that are setting up one-to-one links with academic labs. It has just announced one new venture that goes a bit further than some in putting company researchers in the same labs as the academics.
The federal state of Baden-Württemberg is chipping in some of the costs of the new laboratory dedicated to the development of new homogeneous catalysts. The lab is a joint venture between BASF and the University of Heidelberg.
The deal is that BASF picks up half the costs while the rest comes from the state/university duo. The company tells us that initial investment for building and extending the lab amounts to approximately €1.5M, equally split between state/university and BASF. The annual budget will be approximately €1 M (split 50 : 50), mainly for personnel costs.
The press announcement of the new collaboration says: "Starting in the fall of 2006, six postgraduate scientists from the university as well as six researchers and a head of laboratory from BASF will work together to investigate basic research issues and industrial applications in the field of homogeneous catalysis from their base in the Heidelberg Technology Park." The scientific head of the new lab will be Professor Peter Hofmann of Heidelberg University’s special research area “Molecular Catalysts: Structure and Functional Design”.
The press release has some interesting insights into the university's plans to focus on "knowledge transfer between basic research and applied science". It quotes Professor Peter Hommelhoff, Rector of the University of Heidelberg as saying: "The University of Heidelberg is assuming a pioneering role here, with the support of the Baden-Württemberg government. We look upon CaRLa as a model example of our university’s new value-adding ‘Industry on Campus’ concept and as a far-reaching signal designed in particular to help young scientists to present the results of their research to a wider community and put their achievements to industrial use."
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