BASF to expand its worldwide research spending

From this week's C&EN, an article on BASF by Alex Scott that might be good news for U.S. chemical-industry jobseekers over the next few years:

The Americas and Asia will each get 25% of BASF’s research budget and scientists by 2020 under a plan being advanced by Andreas Kreimeyer, BASF’s board member responsible for research. The company now conducts most of its research in Europe, but to get closer to its customers and work with the world’s best scientists, it must venture outside the Continent, according to Kreimeyer. [snip]

...BASF already increased its R&D spending outside Europe by 3% in 2012 with the opening of seven new labs and the extension of existing labs in Asia-Pacific and the U.S. For example, the firm launched its Innovation Campus Asia Pacific in Shanghai for up to 450 scientists. It’s also rolling out a research center for battery materials in Amagasaki, Japan, opening a mining R&D center in Perth, Australia, and has plans to introduce an R&D center in India. 

BASF has “substantially strengthened” its R&D efforts in the Americas, Kreimeyer said. Notable U.S. projects include a new lab in Wyandotte, Mich., for developing thermoplastic polyurethanes in cooperation with customers in the automotive, building, construction, and sports industries across North America. 

Also in the U.S., BASF, in association with Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Massachusetts, recently inaugurated the American Center for Research on Advanced Materials. Over the next five years, the partners aim to develop microstructures and nanostructured polymers with new properties and come up with bioinspired materials.

Well, that's certainly good news for Michigan, it seems. The academic/industrial collaboration model seems to be alive and well these days, no? It will be very interesting to see how it works out for the industry over the next 5 to 10 years.