What is BlueChem?
BlueChem is the first incubator for sustainable chemistry in Belgium and the ideal location for start-ups and growth companies to innovate, grow and succeed.
This unique public-private partnership brings together industry, academia and government with the joint ambition to help promising start-ups and young companies grow to an industrial scale. Open innovation and the mutual exchange of knowledge make BlueChem the place to be for pioneering innovations and cutting-edge research and development.
BlueChem opened its doors in May 2020 at the eco-effective business park Blue Gate Antwerp, located in the heart of Europe’s largest chemical cluster. BlueChem boosts promising innovations to create the chemistry of the future.
Despite great potential, it must be said that in the chemical sector it’s not easy to transform promising innovations into new companies. Specifically, it takes a lot of time, courage and money to move from a lab setting to that of industrial-scale production.
BlueChem provides the right facilities in the right place to enable ground-breaking ideas to grow from lab experiments into new chemical companies with a strong focus on sustainability and the circular economy.
The incubator offers a mix of ready-to-use and customisable labs, as well as private offices and flexible workspaces that can be used by start-ups, SMEs, large companies, research centres and knowledge institutions alike. Catalisti, the spearhead cluster for the chemical and plastics industry in Flanders, also plays an active role at BlueChem to detect, start up and assist promising innovation projects.
BlueChem is a project costing approximately €11 million that is supported by the European and Flemish governments. The EU is investing over €3.4 million through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Flanders is contributing €868,397 via the Hermes Fund while the City of Antwerp is investing €4 million.
