Public-private partnership

ARC CBBC is a public-private allience in which universities, industries and governmental organisations cooperate. Together, we carry out multidisciplinary research. Our fundamental research spans the breadth of the chemical sector and relies on the involvement of our co-founding companies: the industrial partners AkzoNobel, BASF and Shell. These companies have prominent activities in the Netherlands and in Europe, both in production and in research & innovation.

Knowledge chain

Our research covers the entire knowledge chain: from pioneering research on novel chemical conversions up to new processes and products aimed at energy-efficient processes, new routes to existing or novel products. Thereby, we aim to become a high-impact Advanced Research Center delivering solutions for the carbon-efficient, energy-efficient economy of the future.

The consortium offers a combination of business pull and technology push, in bilateral and multilateral research projects, respectively. Our research questions are addressed by interdisciplinary teams, each involving relevant types of expertise provided by postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.

Strong collaboration

The Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC) focuses on the science and technology breakthroughs needed to synthesize both new and existing chemical building blocks. ARC CBBC is a strong collaboration between industry and knowledge institutes, exchanging state-of-the-art knowhow, ideas, and infrastructures.

Within ARC CBBC, expertise will be integrated at every scale – from the atomic, molecular and macromolecular scale via supramolecular structures to the reactor scale – in order to tackle challenges simultaneously along different timelines and dimensional scales. The research center links pioneering science to complex industrial issues, potentially leading to vital breakthroughs to sustainably meet future demand for energy and materials.

Projects are part of a strategic chain of knowledge and technology: viable and promising projects are selected by the Executive Board for follow-up in subsequent stages of the program. The selection process involves balancing the short-term and long-term perspectives and innovative character of the various research plans put forward.

Three hubs

ARC CBBC consists of three ‘hub locations’, uniting three technological clusters:

• Homogeneous catalysis, materials and synthesis (University of Groningen – RUG)
• Heterogeneous catalysis, materials and synthesis (Utrecht University – UU)
• Process technology, materials and chemical engineering (Eindhoven University of Technology – TU/e)

Find out more about our history.

Other Advanced Research Centers

Besides ARC CBBC, there are two comparable initiatives in the Netherlands. ARCNL  is the Advanced Research Center on nanolithography, with ASML as a industrial partner. QuTech is the Advanced Research Center on quantum technology, with Intel and Microsoft as industrial partners.