RELEASED ON 15/01/13 (DD/MM/YY)

The Dow Chemical Company has partnered with the University of  Illinois, US, to open a new innovation centre as part of the company's  mission to solve challenging problems through research.

Located at  the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Dow Innovation Center  will develop data management solutions to drive value and speed up  discovery in the company's research and development (R&D)  organisations.

University  of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Phyllis Wise said the  partnership is pushing the edges of science and technology to explore  new ideas in critical areas such as coatings, energy, water and  agriculture.

"Solutions to increasingly complex societal  challenges brought about by an expanding global population will be found  in this kind of innovative partnership," Wise added.

"The new  centre will draw upon the strengths in high performance computing (HPC),  informatics and computer science at the University of Illinois to  enhance technology and research within Dow."

Dow has also entered  into an industry partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing  Applications (NCSA) to advance the company's discovery processes.

Dow  Global Information Research director Roy Ladd said: "With access to a  highly passionate student body and NCSA's valuable resources, we are  confident that we can develop innovative IT solutions that will help  solve some of the most pressing challenges facing our customers and  society today."

The innovation centre is scheduled to open in the spring of 2013.

The  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is also part of the  Strategic University Partnership, launched by Dow in 2011, to focus  research capabilities with 11 chemistry, materials science and chemical  engineering departments in the US, according to the University.

SOURCE Chemicals-technology.com