Mission

This, in a nutshell, is what drives the Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC). This public-private organization was founded in 2016 in response to a call by the Dutch government to reduce the country’s carbon footprint pursuant to the 2015 Paris Agreement. At ARC CBBC, academia and industry join forces to curb fragmentation in the field of green chemistry and collaborate to deliver solutions for the carbon and energy-efficient economy of the future.

Our mission: Deploying the best of the Netherlands’ academic infrastructure to conduct ground-breaking research.

In order to embed circular chemistry into our everyday society, we will need to develop new manufacturing routes for many of the necessities we use each and every day: from fuels to pharmaceuticals, coatings and plastics. This includes the use of new feedstock and the design of innovative products and production processes. To accomplish this, ARC CBBC brings together scientific excellence and industrial research and development, in which academia and industry join forces at our research centre in the exploration and development of early-stage technologies and chemical building blocks. By deploying the best of the Netherlands’ academic infrastructure to conduct ground-breaking research – driven by both curiosity and the research topics themselves – we aim to counteract greenhouse gas emissions and transform our vision of a sustainable chemical industry into a tangible reality.

Would you like to know how ARC CBBC tackles the challenges of ‘greenifying chemistry’? Read our year overview ‘2021 at a glance’ or download our year reports.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at ARC CBBC

At ARC CBBC, we are strongly committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) throughout our community, as well as in all facets of our research and education strategies. Concurrently, we aim to facilitate an environment where our researchers and staff members feel safe and respected, regardless of any variances in cultural background, experience and identity.

As a cornerstone of our consortium, our social values intend to facilitate a workplace that promotes the well-being of our people and fully supports them in achieving their full potential. By giving our people an inclusive, open and safe working environment, we also aim to create an inspiring habitat for our researchers and support the development of our talents through our endorsement of the diverse curriculum of the ARC CBBC research pool. Our code of conduct is based on equality, diversity and inclusion for all, and is also intended to benefit the impact and quality of our research by enriching the academic debate and bringing together a diversity of viewpoints, cultures and life experiences.

ARC CBBC’s vision of a healthy work environment encompasses the following three values:

Equality - We welcome people from all ethnic and social backgrounds, as we believe that upholding such values within our organization is of crucial importance to the well-being our people and will protect them against all forms of discrimination.

Diversity - We acknowledge the importance of respecting and valuing differences between people, whether this concerns their physical appearance, origin, gender, socio-economic background, age or personal or professional experience.

Inclusion - We aim to provide a safe learning and working environment where all staff members and researchers feel equally at home, integrated into the community and recognized, and are given the chance to develop with respect to their own identity and personality.

Our actions:

Raising Awareness - We regularly promote the importance of EDI values among our community in all facets of our education and communication strategies. This encompasses such activities as holding lectures promoting EDI values during our summer schools, informing our target audience about important public events promoting diversity and inclusion (such as International Women’s Day) via our social media channels and participating in other public events through which we aim to raise awareness about EDI values (i.e. the Utrecht science week, the Betweter festival).

Promoting various opportunities to connect - Numerous opportunities are created throughout the year to ensure our people feel included and part of the ARC CBBC community. These events include training courses and workshops, our annual community event, progress meetings, visits to company partners and other events organized at our university as well as at our industry partners.