This global expansion of research activities will involve an increase in BASF's scientific staff by more than 10 percent (compared to the baseline year 2004). Altogether 180 new posts will be created in the next few years. About 80 additional scientific experts will be working at the BASF technology platforms in Ludwigshafen and Limburgerhof. “In important regions of the world, BASF is establishing additional research capacities for which it will be selectively recruiting specialists,” explained Dr. Stefan Marcinowski. For example, a competence center for nanostructured surfaces will be opened in Singapore in 2006. This nanotechnology laboratory will allow the company to participate in the city-state's outstanding research infrastructure and will reinforce its Asian research network. Other BASF research facilities like the catalysis laboratory in Evans City, Pennsylvania, the plant biotechnology laboratory in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the synthesis laboratory in Thane, India, will be supplemented with additional staff. BASF will also be intensifying its co-location activities with academia; for example, the number of research staff at the BASF laboratory in Strasbourg University (ISIS) will be doubled.

The development of tailored customer solutions and technical service are two of the most important tasks faced by the 13 regional development centers BASF has already set up in Asia. The development center in Pudong, Shanghai, for example includes units for developing textile auxiliaries and polymer dispersions, a polyurethane system house and a laboratory for engineering plastics. Besides pursuing their close-to-customer development activities, these centers also receive impulses from the downstream sectors of the vigorously growing Asian markets and pass them on to the corporate divisions and research units.

BASF Aktiengesellschaft
Communications BASF Group
67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany

Editor BASF Group
ZOA/CP - C 100
Christian Schröpfer
E-Mail: christian.schroepfer@basf-ag.de
Telephone: +49 (0)621 60-41747
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