Bayer MaterialScience
AG, one of the world's largest producers of polymers and high-performance
plastics, and Holst Centre, an open-innovation initiative by research organizations
IMEC (Belgium) and TNO (The Netherlands), have now announced their partnership
in the field of flexible electronics. By joining the Holst Centre eco-system,
Bayer exchanges its own expertise with the existing network of academic and
industrial partners.
Together with leading players in the domain of flexible electronics, Holst
Centre subscribes the vision of a smart foils industry. The vision describes
a value chain that starts with materials and equipment suppliers delivering
to manufacturers of smart foils such as organic light emitting diode (OLED)
lighting, battery or organic photovoltaics (OPV). At the end of the chain are
producers of smart devices who develop products by integrating foils with various
functionalities.
Jaap Lombaers, Managing Director Systems-in-Foil at Holst Centre: “We
are proud to add Bayer MaterialScience as a leading materials supplier to our
existing partner network. Over the past few months, I have met with many colleagues
of Bayer. I am convinced that their dynamic spirit and world class technical
expertise is a valuable asset to our program.”
“We are committed to deliver improved films product solutions to our
customers addressing new applications within the flexible electronics industry”,
adds Bernd Steinhilber, Senior Vice President and Head of Functional Films at
Bayer Material Science. “The partnership in Holst Center is an excellent
opportunity for us, bringing together competent industry in the open innovation
surrounding. The growing demand for increased functionality in the materials
we supply is matched perfectly with the improvements we expect from this collaboration.”
To stimulate innovation and decrease time-to-market in this eco-system, Holst
Centre aims at gathering academic and industrial partners from across this value
chain around shared technical roadmaps. Already Holst Centre teams up with several
global leaders and local startups to jointly develop technologies for flexible
electronics such as OLED and OPV.