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Web Date: December 18, 2015
DuPont Will Dissolve Central Research
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DuPont Central Research & Development, one of the most prestigious and accomplished research organizations in the chemistry world, will soon cease to exist.
According to a memorandum obtained by C&EN and authenticated by DuPont, the company will combine DuPont Science & Technology and DuPont Engineering into a single organization called Science & Engineering, effective Jan. 1, 2016. “As part of this integration, Central Research & Development will be substantially redesigned to become ‘Science & Innovation’,” states the memo, attributed to DuPont Chief Science & Technology Officer Doug Muzyka.
DuPont isn’t commenting on questions regarding the numbers of possible layoffs or the fate of central research labs at DuPont’s Chestnut Run facility and Experimental Station, both in Wilmington, Del.
The news of the research restructuring comes just days after the blockbuster Dec. 11 announcement that DuPont will merge with Dow Chemical. In discussing the merger, DuPont Chief Executive Officer Edward Breen downplayed the potential impact on R&D, saying that only about $300 million would be cut from the combined firm’s research budget. Last year, DuPont alone spent $2.1 billion on R&D.
The research restructuring is part of a plan DuPont announced on Dec. 11 to cut its own costs by $700 million, largely by eliminating 10% of the company’s workforce in 2016.
In recent years, DuPont has been under pressure from activist investor Nelson Peltz who, among other things, has criticized DuPont for high overhead and the ineffectiveness of its centralized R&D. “The company’s strategy to leverage ‘integrated science’ capabilities has, in our view, led to speculative corporate R&D investments and lackluster return on invested capital,” Peltz wrote in April.
DuPont Central R&D is one of the world’s oldest and most venerable corporate research organizations and has often been compared to the former Bell Labs. DuPont plunged into centralized, fundamental R&D in the 1920s under the guidance of Research Director Charles M. A. Stine. Stine hired Wallace H. Carothers away from Harvard University in 1928. Carothers’s work at DuPont would lead to neoprene and nylon.
DuPont’s labs even spawned a Nobel Laureate. DuPont chemist Charles J. Pedersen shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn for work in synthesizing macrocyclic polyethers, also known as crown ethers.
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I feel for all of those scientists that raised families in the area, built their social network and invested much of their lives innovating for DuPont that will now find themselves on the street.
G*d bless America!
Still this is a merger between two companies that have always been technology leaders. I cannot imagine that changing. Sure there will be some consolidation and probably specialization but you would expect the cost savings mostly on the commercial side. Talented researchers are still a valued asset to both companies.
Even those few 'activist investors' who understand science and innovation and it's positive effect on our economy would rather add to their billion-dollar fortunes than (re)build a company for the long-term. I wish them no success
BB
This quite obviously is a low-light , that hedge-funds can dismantle a well respected chemical company as DuPont. What would have happened when DuPont would have fully neutrally reacted to the hedge pressure for restructuring , improving ROI . etc. ?
Would the company would have entered the Chapter 11 world ? By no means , I think.
Dow is a complete different company , and might have teamed up with these company hunters. Overall , it is a shame that one of the first measures is to " reorganize " the famous DuPont Central Research & Development Group. And to spread their works in a different , less innovative way, over other engineering and process groups. what means for sure a major lay-off of the involved personnel. The problem today is that many chemical companies are downsizing their R&D efforts, and need less scientists, and might well lay-off own scientists. China is building a huge system of " independent " high-tech " R&D institutes , which do not belong to Universities.
These Institutes can be compared with the German Max Planck Institutes . I visited one brand-new Institute in Shanghai, next door to a huge Technical University under construction , which will be finished by now. The scientists are Chinese PhD, which have not prepared their thesis at a Chinese University but at a foreign, well known University , like Stanford, Calltech ,Harvard, Cambridge , ETH Zurich , RWTH Aachen , etc. These Chinese Institutes might well have a good look at the upcoming lay-offs from DuPont Central Research & Development.
He was fortunate to have a patent for "Afflair"early in his career. Dick is ill right now but I keep him updated on the DowDupont merger.
As a family, we enjoyed the many facilities DuPont offerred. I am sad for the families in DE who will never experience the fun we had at the DuPont Country Club etc.
This is not good.
http://www.chemweek.com/lab/DuPont-to-cut-1700-jobs-in-Delaware_76098.html?utm_source=CW+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160105_insider