Wacker Chemie Presents Insignias for WACKER Chair and Silicon Institute

26.07.2007, Press releases

• INSTITUTE STRENGTHENS BASIC RESEARCH IN SILICON CHEMISTRY AND ENSURES EFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BETWEEN RESEARCH AND BUSINESS • WACKER PROVIDES € 6 MILLION IN FUNDING • COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS – SCHOLARSHIPS FOR 50 DOCTORAL CANDIDATES • INSTITUTE BOOSTS TU MUNICH’S AND BAVARIA’S ATTRACTIVENESS AS RESEARCH LOCATIONS

During a ceremony today, Wacker Chemie AG officially opened the Institute of Silicon Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The endowed institute is under the direction of the WACKER Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry. Both the institute and chair receive funding from WACKER endowments, for which the Munich-based chemical company has set aside € 6 million. Bavaria’s Minister President Dr. Edmund Stoiber delivered the keynote speech at the presentation of the chair insignias.

Bavaria’s Minister President Dr. Edmund Stoiber stressed that the new institute is a successful example of university and business collaboration, which is becoming increasingly important. Government and business must jointly establish the right conditions to awaken young people’s interest in the natural sciences, to ensure optimal education and to promote innovation and progress. In light of growing competitiveness, this is more important than ever, Dr. Stoiber said. “TU Munich’s new WACKER Chair is a prime example of how this can be achieved. It closely unites commerce and science and accelerates knowledge transfer between the realms of research and applications. This is the fundamental formula for success.”

According to Bavaria’s minister president, the role of business is to provide science with impetus and inputs. Science, in turn, must make research results available quickly. “Today, outstanding achievements are only possible via close collaboration between business and science,” said Dr. Stoiber. “A high-tech location like Bavaria needs to be at the leading edge of key forward-looking fields such as silicon chemistry.”

At the Group’s Munich headquarters, CEO Dr. Peter-Alexander Wacker presented the institute and chair insignias to TUM President Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann and Prof. Bernhard Rieger, holder of the WACKER Chair. “The new institute is a milestone that further strengthens our leadership in silicon chemistry,” stressed Dr. Wacker in his speech. “Silicon and silicone chemistry account for some 80 percent of our sales and are therefore of tremendous economic importance to us. The new institute helps us further extend our technological leadership.”
Macromolecular silicon chemistry in particular – with its multifaceted nature and numerous unanswered questions – is a promising research field for establishing new operating areas and applications, Dr. Wacker continued. This necessitates focused research collaboration with a top university. “To us, scientific exchange with universities and research facilities is a key prerequisite for developing new products and technologies,” said the CEO. “The silicon institute provides us with important insights, while also sustainably boosting TUM’s and Germany’s attractiveness as research locations.”

TUM President Prof. Wolfgang Herrmann lauded the new collaboration as a key contribution toward strengthening research in Germany. “Many German companies derive their sales primarily from external markets. But we don’t want research to relocate to these overseas markets. Thanks to the collaboration between TUM and WACKER, macromolecular silicon research in Germany has gained a further stronghold,” said Prof. Herrmann.

Prof. Herrmann also emphasized that the institute underscores many decades of trusting, successful partnership between TUM and WACKER. With Prof. Bernhard Rieger’s appointment, the WACKER Chair gains a proven expert in macromolecular chemistry. His leadership and the institute’s outstanding financial footing turn this facility into a flagship project. “The establishment of an Institute of Silicon Chemistry is the first-ever instance of a silicon-focused research partnership,” said Prof. Herrmann. “The institute and the WACKER Chair extend TUM’s expertise in this promising field and enhance our position among top international research organizations.”

Institute of Silicon Chemistry
WACKER endowed the Institute of Silicon Chemistry at TUM in late 2006. The facility is under the direction of the Chair of Macro¬molecular Chemistry, the latter of which carries the WACKER name. WACKER is funding the new institute for at least six years and will also help finance the WACKER Chair. The company is earmarking € 6 million for this purpose. These funds will finance research projects and scholarships, as well as project and research-related procurement. Potential beneficiaries of scholarships could include some 50 doctoral candidates.

Prof. Bernhard Rieger, one of the world’s most prominent macromolecular chemistry experts, will hold the WACKER Chair and head the institute, which is housed in TUM’s Garching chemistry building. Its research focus is primarily organofunctional silicon compounds, as well as silicones, whose structure-effect relationships have not yet been fully explored.
Additional focal points are chemical interactions for surface coatings, hybrid and composite systems, silicon-based nanotechnology, materials with highly novel property profiles, and new catalytic methods in industrial silicon chemistry. In particular, funding will go to interdisciplinary research at the crossroads between physics, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, environmental chemistry and material sciences.

Further Information
Contact
Wacker Chemie AG
Press and Information
Florian Degenhart
Tel. +49 89 6279-1601
Fax +49 89 6279-2877
florian.degenhart@wacker.com

Kontakt: presse@tum.de