We Empower Creative Minds.

Martina Schulze-Adams is the senior vice president of WACKER’s Corporate R&D and head of the Consortium, the company’s central research facility in Munich. Guided by her vision and pioneer­ing spirit, she works with her team to drive in­no­­vation, securing WACKER’s position at the forefront of technological progress.

Ms. Schulze-Adams, WACKER is one of the most research-oriented chemical companies in the world. What issues are you currently pursuing in Corporate R&D?

Sustainability is a major driving force right now. Most of our re­search projects revolve around sustainability. We’re also investing quite a lot in biotechnology, with over half of our lab space at the Consortium dedicated to biotech. And it doesn’t stop there: we’re also opening a new biotech center here on site in 2025. Those in­vestments – which run in the double-digit-million-euro range – will help us continue strengthening Group research here at WACKER.

But there’s one thing I’d especially like to emphasize: research should never be an end in itself – it should always move WACKER forward as a company. That was one of the founding principles of the Consortium, and it remains our standard to this day. Innovation is how we hope to make the world a little bit better. It’s our purpose. That means consistently gearing our efforts to the needs of the market and of our customers, while also making sure we maintain a clear focus on the business and our finances.

How much in total does WACKER invest in research and development?

Over 180 million euros per year. WACKER currently has about 350 ongoing research projects throughout the world, which ensures our business remains on a solid long-term footing. We support all of our business divisions. In our Polymers division, for example, we’re primarily concerned with maintaining steady progress in product development and expanding into new ap­plications. If we didn’t, we would be just another chemical company. The main focus in Polysilicon is on process improvements and on the question of how to continue increasing the purity of our products. We have to make sure that we’re always taking the lead in that respect, especially when it comes to our semiconductor materials. But that’s basically true for everything we do: we conduct research in order to maintain a technological edge on the market.

Easier said than done. How do you generate new ideas?

There’s no patented formula for that. It ultimately comes down to interactions between a number of factors. We take a syste­ma­tic look at major trends like sustainability or artificial intelligence, of course, which also includes having a regular presence at research conferences and congresses. Another traditional – and equally important – strategy is staying abreast of scientific publications: I often hear people say things like, “You know, I was just reading something that I think could really move us forward. And some ideas just arise by accident, at lunch or in a meeting. Somebody might learn that there’s a chemical that biologists use for oxidation, and suggests that they do it electrochemically instead; not only would that make the process cleaner, but, if they used green electricity, it would be more sustainable too. That example highlights the huge benefit of the Consortium: it brings people together from completely different disciplines, from molecular biology to organic chemistry to electrochemistry. And that enriches everyone.

To what extent do you cooperate with external research partners?

Even though WACKER has an enormous wealth of knowledge and experience, there are limits, of course. And we have to overcome those. That’s why it’s so important for us to be open and collaborate with universities, research institutes, startups and other companies and industries. And that’s exactly what we do. We maintain collaborative relationships with 45 scientific institutions. Two years ago, we founded the TUM WACKER Institute for Industrial Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich. Twenty PhD thesis projects are currently underway there. Plus, we also support a number of other PhD candidates from other universities and research institutes right here at the Consortium.

What priorities do you set when it comes to collaborating with external partners?

Cross-sector collaboration – cooperating across various industries, in other words – is becoming increasingly important for us. That might mean joining forces with experts from the steel or cement industries, for example, in order to work on better recycling processes. One great example of this is the “Reallabor” – the “real-world laboratory” – in Burghausen. Companies from various industries have come together there to study sustainable hydrogen use under realistic conditions.

In research you have to work with an eye to the future – looking ahead five to ten years or more. It takes a long time, in other words, before an idea results in a concrete product. What are the keys to success during that long process?

“Research should never be an end in itself – it should always move WACKER forward as a company.”

Vision and staying power are important. Fortunately, WACKER is a company with a long-term mindset and doesn’t just focus on its next-quarter earnings. That allows us to approach research projects with a view to the long run. A lot of our projects are set to last for three to five years. That’s a huge advantage for a researcher like me. But I’m also a manager. That means being both courageous and consistent enough to stop projects when we see that we’re not going to achieve our goals. It may be that customer and market preferences have shifted somewhere along the way, that we’ve reached the limits of a given technology, or that we can’t reach our business and financial goals. Being a researcher and manager at the same time isn’t always easy: it’s a tightrope walk but, ultimately, it’s also exactly what I love so much about this job.