Catalisti's Innovation Roadmap Questionnaire

Why should you participate?

By participating in the questionnaire, you help ensure that the Innovation Roadmap reflects the real needs, ambitions and expertise of those driving innovation in Flanders — from researchers and engineers to industry leaders, start-ups, entrepreneurs, business developers, policymakers and value chain partners. Your input will directly shape how our ecosystem prioritises future innovation and which initiatives and services will help your organisation thrive even more. Completing the questionnaire is your opportunity to help shape the future of the chemical and plastics industry in Flanders.

The context perspective of the innovation roadmap is built around “five drivers, one mission”: supporting a sustainable, competitive and resilient chemical and plastics industry in Flanders. These five drivers reflect the most decisive innovation forces shaping the sector today and are deliberately named to mirror the real choices companies face.

Innovation must start with Answering to changing demands from markets and consumers, because without a clear market pull, technologies do not scale. The business case determines whether it’s worth investing. Yet a strong market position and business case is only viable if we are Reversing the trend of declining productivity growth, ensuring that new solutions improve efficiency and thus competitiveness. To achieve this, the perspective highlights Embracing the power of digital tools as a major horizontal driver that accelerates efficiency gains, productivity increases and cost savings. In parallel, Moving towards a circular economy reframes how we source, use and recover materials, connecting design, production and end-of-life choices. Finally, Harmonizing with climate, people and environment anchors all innovation in long-term societal value and license to operate. 

Together, these drivers form a coherent framework. By naming the five drivers, the roadmap creates a shared language for companies, researchers and policymakers. It allows every innovation project to ask: which driver does this address, and how does it contribute to the overarching mission? In this way, the context perspective turns complexity into a clear, actionable framework for innovation choices.

Read the draft Innovation Roadmap

The cluster perspective of the innovation roadmap is built around “five levers, one central actor”: creating additional leverage for members of Catalisti. As innovation cluster, Catalisti focuses its efforts to stimulate collaboration and accelerate innovation across the cluster, intervening where coordination failures are greatest. So, innovation can flow faster and farther across the entire ecosystem.

Catalisti therefore concentrates its work around five interconnected levers. Through Brokering innovation projects and trajectories, it helps ideas move from basic and applied research to demonstration and deployment, reducing risk and fragmentation along the way. By Strengthening existing and creating new value chains, it supports both incremental improvements that boost productivity now and disruptive shifts that open future business opportunities. With Strengthening start-ups in our ecosystem, the roadmap acknowledges that pioneers need access to partners, funding and infrastructure to turn promising technologies into industrial reality. At the same time, Collaborating across sectors and clusters ensures that solutions and knowledge can spill over into adjacent industries, where much untapped potential lies. Finally, Collaborating across regions and borders connects Flemish actors to European and international networks and funding streams.

Together, these levers form a coherent framework. By naming the five levers, the roadmap creates a practical, stakeholder-oriented approach. The innovation roadmap looks at the ecosystem as a whole and asks: where can targeted support make the greatest difference for all stakeholders and accelerate innovation most effectively? It starts from the reality that companies, knowledge institutes, start-ups, clusters and public actors each have their own focus and interests, and that bringing these together requires continuous, deliberate effort.

Read the draft Innovation Roadmap

The technical perspective of the innovation roadmap is built around “five programmes, one value chain”, translating ambition into well-defined actions across the entire chemical value chain. This involves processes consisting of multiple unit operations, from feedstocks and energy resources to valuable products. This programme structure enables Catalisti to respond to current needs while remaining open to future challenges.

Circular Feedstocks focuses on bringing alternative inputs – carbon (biomass, waste and CO₂) as well as non-carbon-based feedstocks - into value chains, reducing fossil dependency and enabling circular flows, while opening up new performance and differentiation opportunities. Energy Solutions addresses the reality that our sector is both energy-intensive and cost-sensitive, by exploring electrification, alternative energy carriers and smarter ways to match energy demand with supply. In parallel, Future-proof Processes responds to the need for safe, resilient and digitally enabled production, integrating advanced digital tools, automation and process innovation. Effective Unit Operations takes a look at the core infrastructure of the industry, seeking step-change gains in conversion, separation and purification, which often unlock both cost and environmental benefits. Finally, Advanced Products ensures that what emerges from this value chain is safe by design, circular by design and performant by design, aligned with regulatory expectations and customer needs.

Together, these programmes form a coherent framework. By naming these five programmes, the roadmap mirrors how companies practically think about their business. The innovation roadmap looks at technical opportunities along the value chain as a whole an asks: how can we offer technical solutions to transform (process) resources (input) as efficiently as possible into valuable molecules and products (output)? Together, they provide a coherent structure for the fifteen tracks (see visual) and help stakeholders position their own innovation activities within a shared, forward-looking agenda.

Read the draft Innovation Roadmap