Working in partnerships

Working with universities

We have close partnerships with hundreds of universities around the world, which involve joint research and can result in successful business applications.

A good example is our partnership with the State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion in Taiyuan, China. We are working together on several projects including carbon dioxide mineralisation and enhanced coalbed methane recovery. We are sponsoring doctoral or post-doctoral research and helping Chinese researchers to work in our laboratories in Amsterdam while our staff work in the Chinese facilities. Through this partnership we are gaining greater understanding of the issues facing China, while they are benefiting from our technical expertise in coal.

We plan to build a stronger relationship by possible larger investment in other major Chinese institutes – similar to those we already have with Delft University in the Netherlands, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and Imperial College London in the UK.

Priority areas for future partnerships include nanotechnology, novel engineering solutions, biodomain technologies, subsurface (extreme conditions) chemistry and physics, molecule detection and identification, and advanced computing.

Other partnerships

Joining forces with other experts helps us to make quicker technological advances. We learn by co-operating with others, even if we then go on to develop our own projects independently.

Combining financial resources means much greater research investment. Our multi-sponsor partnerships, or consortia, normally consist of a government partner, universities or knowledge institutions, and other private companies.

Some of our major partnerships include:

• B-basic, a consortium of universities, research institutions and industry, is a biotechnology project focusing on developing new bio-based production concepts for the chemical and energy industries.
• Integrated System Approach Petroleum Production with Dutch research organisation TNO and Delft University (the Netherlands). This aims to increase hydrocarbon recovery through applying innovative reservoir development and management technologies.
• Membrane separation projects with the Dutch Separation Technology Institute. These include research into separating methane gas from sulphur and other gases, to help make our sour gas fields more productive.
• The Energy Technology Institute, in partnership with the UK government. The institute aims to speed up the development and commercial use of secure, reliable and cost-effective low-carbon technologies and support the UK’s climate change goals. It will establish and manage networks of top scientists and engineers to achieve this.