Universities

WACKER maintains regular contact with universities around the globe. Our specialists are frequently invited to hold talks at universities and institutes, while academics often visit our sites. Furthermore, graduates can come to WACKER to do their final theses or work as interns and temporary employees.

In 2008, WACKER launched a summer course in Burghausen for process/chemical engineering graduates. The course’s aim was to provide insights into an engineer’s tasks at a chemical company. For several years, WACKER has worked with selected universities to hold project-planning courses for biochemical and chemical engineering students nearing graduation. In 2008, we organized a course with Dortmund university, asking participants to design a dimethyldichlorosilane production plant. These courses give graduates the chance to apply what they have learned at university. At the same time, they forge closer ties between WACKER and academia, increasing our company’s exposure to students and enabling us to get to know potential recruits at work.

In July 2008, WACKER and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) opened an Institute of Silicon Chemistry in Garching (near Munich). The institute is part of the WACKER Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry at the TUM. WACKER has endowed the Chair and Institute of Silicon Chemistry with €6 million, securing the entire financing for at least six years. Equipped with state-of-the-art lab facilities, the 500-m² institute offers ideal conditions for interdisciplinary research into macromolecular organosilicon compounds. More specifically, the institute’s research will concentrate on organofunctional silicon compounds and silicones. Funding primarily targets projects at the crossroads between physics, biotechnology and the material sciences.

By pioneering this collaboration, WACKER and the TUM are helping to boost Germany’s attractiveness as a research location. WACKER also supports about 50 doctoral candidates with these funds.

In 2007, we presented the WACKER Silicone Award for the twelfth time. It stands alongside the Kipping Award as silicon chemistry’s most important international accolade. The €10,000 prize went to Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig, president of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. The award was in recognition of Prof. Apeloig’s pioneering theoretical and experimental work in organosilicon chemistry.