1、 2022 Boston Consulting Group1The State of Change in Chemical InnovationNOVEMBER 10,2022 By Christian Hoffmann and Adam RothmanChemical companies are shiing to a new,more collaborative form of R&D.Growth depends on their ability to engage with the outside world.A producer of specialty chemicals anno

2、unces a crowdsourcing competition,inviting outsiders to submit ideas for new products and servicesand then itcollaborates with the winners to develop them.An agrochemical companydevelops data-driven guidance on crop cultivation,coinventing their applicationmethods with their farming customers.A mult

3、ispecialty company shares itsresearch staff and laboratory facilities with universities in Europe and China.And 2022 Boston Consulting Group2several chemical companies run venture capital units,funding startups with jointresearch projects in multiple fields,such as food and personal care additives,e

4、lectronic chemicals,and others.These are not isolated cases.They are part of an accelerating trenda shi to anew,multifunctional,more collaborative form of innovationthat we haveobserved in our ongoing work with leading chemical companies worldwide and inour surveys of industry leaders.Innovation is

5、as strong asever in the chemicalindustry.Our study ofpublicly listed companiesfound that they spent,onaverage,2.4%of theirannual revenues on R&D in2021,with a few spendingmore than 6%.Thisrepresents a significantinvestment.But the style of innovation has changed dramatically.In the past,chemicalcomp

6、any research was conducted by in-house chemists focused on developing andcommercializing their own companys breakthrough molecules,differentiatedformulations,and novel processes.Outsiders were viewed as competitors andopponents.Today,a typical R&D effort involves multiple disciplines beyondchemistry