KUREHA’s R&D
R&D Top Message
Kureha has always sought to create products that are useful to people’s lives and the global environment based on creative technological capabilities we have cultivated since our founding. In this way, we have evolved together with society. Today, companies must provide solutions that leverage their respective strengths to address global challenges, including global warming and the fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and create corporate value that contributes to a sustainable society.
Kureha’s corporate philosophy is to "contribute to the creation of a sustainable society through valuable products and technologies,” and the spirit that propels our R&D efforts is captured in the words “if it doesn’t exist, create it.” Driven by these guiding principles and technology that differentiates us from other companies, we strive to be a specialty solutions company that leverages proprietary technology and contributes to a new future for society.
To achieve this, Kureha Group's new mid- to long-term management plan, "Toward Creating a New Future (FY2023-2030)," sets forth the revival of Kureha’s technology-driven focus as its most important policy, with focus on establishing new business fields while continuing research aimed at accelerating the growth of existing businesses. In particular, we will concentrate resources on R&D related to new product development and carbon neutrality.
Looking ahead to the society of the future, we will focus on the core technologies of organic synthesis, polymers, carbon material, evaluation, and process engineering in our designated priority fields of Environment and Energy, Life, and Digital Communications. We are closely matching our research themes to market demands, while promoting the development of unique and differentiated products.
Based on technological fields where we can demonstrate strengths, we will advance in our chosen research themes while actively utilizing open innovation with other companies, the governmental institution, and academia, and create new businesses from both market-in and product-out perspectives.
In addition, we are actively promoting the creation of new products for markets of strength as well as new technological fields by accelerating our search for areas of development that naturally flow from Kureha’s R&D, and in which we can make effective use of the resources of the Group's existing businesses. To this end, we place the greatest emphasis on researcher career development. We are continually strengthening our measures to cultivate researchers, not only in research departments, but also through job rotations that allow them to gain experience from domestic and overseas business departments, production technology headquarters, and affiliated companies, as well as dispatches to governmental institution and academia. In addition, we are continually enhancing our systems to create a work environment enabling rapid development and commercialization of new products.
Going forward, we will strive to inspire all our researchers to go out into the world with a strong sense of curiosity, develop a grasp of issues and needs on their own, and demonstrate inspiration and originality. By finding, developing, and providing solutions ahead of other companies, we will contribute to the development of a sustainable society.