DSM breaks ground on new research building

Royal DSM, the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company, held the official groundbreaking event for construction of a new materials sciences research building on the Chemelot Campus in Sittard-Geleen, the Netherlands. The new facility, which is scheduled to open in 2014, forms part of an investment of around €100 million that DSM is making in three new R&D facilities in Sittard-Geleen and in Delft (also in the Netherlands).Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony, RoelofWesterbeek, President DSM Engineering Plastics, confirmed DSM’s commitment to innovation in the Netherlands, where the company was founded over 110 years ago.The building will house about 420 employees and will become the most important R&D centre for DSM Engineering Plastics in the world, next to the centres in Asia and the United Sates. The new facility will also provide R&D for other units in DSM’s Materials Science cluster, such as DSM Dyneema, as well as new innovation activities in the field of bio-based materials and biomedical materials. www.dsm.com