Our goal: leading in innovation
Developing sustainable innovations is vital for our focus on profitable growth. In this way, we help our customers achieve their own climate protection, circularity, and biodiversity targets. Sustainability is therefore an elementary component of our innovation portfolio. Our aim is to steadily improve both our handprint and our footprint. In this way, our innovative capability enables us to open up opportunities in new, future-oriented businesses.
Growth Fields: Setting course for the future
Innovations and a systematic alignment to specialty chemicals play a key role in our drive to be the best-in-class specialty chemicals company. In view of this, we have taken an important step to pave the way for the future: In 2016, we restructured our innovation portfolio to focus on six growth fields, which are assigned to our growth engines in highly attractive markets with above-average growth rates.
The aim is to generate more than € 1 billion in additional sales in these areas by 2025. The six growth fields focus on highly attractive markets which Evonik can optimally serve with new products and solutions based on its core competencies. The six growth fields are:
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| R&D expenses (2023) | €443 milion |
| R&D ratio | 2.9% |
| No. of new patent applications filed (2023) | 227 |
| Patents held and applications filed | approx. 23,000 |
| R&D employees | approx. 2,700 |
| R&D locations | more than 40 |
Developing sustainable innovations is vital for our focus on profitable growth. In this way, we help our customers achieve their own climate protection, circularity, and biodiversity targets. Examples of our innovative contribution to a sustainable transformation are our membrane technologies and our lipid nanoparticles for mordern mRNA vaccines.
At present, our operational chemicals divisions account for around 83 percent of our R&D expenses, while Creavis - Evonik's strategic innovation unit and business incubator - accounts for 14 percent.
Evonik has an extensive patent strategy to protext new products and processes. The value and quality of our patent portfolio have increased steadily in recent years. In 2023, 227 new patent applications were submitted, and we had around 23,000 patens and pending patens.
Our R&D pipeline comprises a balanced mix of short-, mid-, and long-term R&D projects. On the one hand, we constantly strive to improve our processes in order to strengthen our cost leadership, and on the other, our projects open the door to new markets and news fields of technology. Our project portfolio is consistently aligned with our innovation growth fields and Next Generation Solutions, which have high sustainability benefits.
Scientific Relations
We cooperate with research institutes, universities and other industrial companies so that the latest findings in chemistry, biology and physics can rapidly be transported into our company, and to foster science and education.
Through strategic partnerships we are linked to leading universities in the USA, China, and Japan, and to Singapore’s state-run research agency (A*STAR). In 2016 Evonik extended its partnership with the Ruhr University in Bochum (Germany), where it is sponsoring a chair in organic chemistry for five years. Our support for our established partnership with the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany comprises a junior professorship, ten scholarships for doctoral candidates and joint projects. In addition, we are a preferred partner of Munich Technical University. We have been running a joint laboratory with Shanghai Jiao Tong University for several years.
The "Evonik Meets Science" forum is held regularly in Germany, China, Japan and the USA to strengthen networking with leading international research scientists. At these forums, our experts engage in discussion with leading scientists from a wide range of disciplines and institutions and present their joint research findings.
Partner Institutions Americas
Partner Institutions EMEA
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
- RWTH Aachen
- Technical University of Munich
- University of Duisburg-Essen
Partner Institutions Asia
The Fellowship Program
Our Fellowship Program honors outstanding Evonik researchers who have pioneered significant innovations and thus made a major contribution to the company's success.
In order to make the knowledge of these Research Principals available to the company, they act as expert advisors, for example in decisions on investments in specific technologies or on sustainability issues. They also help Evonik identify and develop talent and actively support young researchers as mentors. Other employees also benefit from the Research Principals' expertise: They share their experience and know-how with other colleagues in internal training courses and other knowledge transfer projects. They also act as external ambassadors for Evonik's research excellence, for example by raising awareness of the company's scientific excellence at universities.
Innovation Challenges
We are looking for your ideas to solve the great challenges of our time!
Are you a scientist, student, technology expert, entrepreneur, customer or supplier? We are open to collaborations that help us to master our challenges.
Creavis
Our mission: Creavis is Evonik's strategic innovation unit and business incubator. We are the pioneer of sustainable solutions for a better life.
