Competition is becoming ever fiercer in the chemical industry as new firms from such emerging economies as China and India enter the market and as technological advances, potential new regulations, and rising energy and feedstock costs shrink profit margins. Companies manufacturing commodity products are particularly vulnerable to these forces. Yet chemical firms are also discovering that cooperation, even between competitors, is necessary for meeting today’s challenges.

Today’s market dilemmas and innovation systems are too complex for any one organization. Network building is therefore central to continued innovation. Successful networks must include competitors working in partnership. This report summarizes the third annual CHF–SCI Innovation Day and describes a variety of partnerships among chemical and materials firms that combine cooperation and competition in novel, forward-looking ways.

This is the third in a series of white papers produced by CHF’s Center for Contemporary History and Policy.

Also in this series:

Research Frontiers for the Chemical Industry: A Report on the Fifth Annual CHF-SCI Innovation Day, Warren G. Schlinger Symposium

Research Frontiers for the Chemical Industry: A Report on the Fourth Annual CHF-SCI Innovation Day, Warren G. Schlinger Symposium

Research Frontiers for the Chemical Industry: A Report on the Second Annual CHF-SCI Innovation Day, Warren G. Schlinger Symposium

Research Frontiers for the Chemical Industry: A Report on the First Annual CHF-SCI Innovation Day, Warren G. Schlinger Symposium

Cyrus Mody is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Rice University. He holds a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and materials engineering from Harvard University. He was the 2004–2005 Gordon Cain Fellow at CHF. Mody has published widely on the history and sociology of materials science, instrumentation, and nanotechnology. He is also the author of Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy and the Path to Nanotechnology.