IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES LIMITED

Their core work

Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) is a UK-based private chemical and materials company headquartered in Slough. In H2020, they contributed industrial materials expertise across two distinct areas: bio-inspired smart adhesive materials and energy-harvesting building skin technologies. Their participation in both an MSCA training network and an Innovation Action indicates they serve as an industry anchor in research consortia — providing commercial context, materials testing capacity, and a route toward real-world application. With no coordinator roles and modest funding receipts, their value lies in the industry knowledge they bring rather than project management capacity.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early phase, ICI engaged with fundamental materials science through the BioSmartTrainee MSCA network, where the focus was bio-inspired design of smart adhesive materials — a topic close to ICI's historic strengths in surface chemistry and functional coatings. By 2017, their attention shifted toward applied energy solutions: invisible solar integration and heat harvesting from building façades, placing them at the intersection of materials science and clean energy infrastructure. This movement from pure materials research toward building-integrated energy applications suggests ICI is orienting its capabilities toward the growing market for energy-efficient and energy-generating building envelopes.

ICI is moving from classical advanced materials toward energy-harvesting building solutions, making them a potentially relevant industrial partner for future consortia at the intersection of materials science, construction, and building energy efficiency.

How they like to work

ICI has participated exclusively as a consortium partner — they have never coordinated an H2020 project — indicating they prefer to contribute focused industrial expertise rather than manage broader consortia. Despite only two projects, they engaged with 24 distinct partners across 7 countries, reflecting the large, internationally diverse structures typical of MSCA-ITN and Innovation Action schemes. This profile is characteristic of an industrial partner that brings real-world application knowledge and commercial validation capacity to research-led consortia, rather than acting as a scientific driver.

ICI has connected with 24 unique partners across 7 countries through just two projects, a breadth driven by the large consortium formats of the schemes they joined. Their network spans multiple European countries with no dominant geographic cluster evident from the available data.

What sets them apart

As a large private chemical company with deep roots in surface chemistry and functional materials, ICI brings industrial-scale perspective to what are typically academic-led research consortia — a credibility that smaller SMEs or spin-outs cannot easily replicate. Their participation across both a researcher training network and an applied innovation action shows they can contribute meaningfully at different stages of the research-to-market pipeline. For consortium builders, they represent a recognisable UK industry name in materials and coatings with demonstrated willingness to engage in multi-country EU research programmes.

Highlights from their portfolio

• BioSmartTrainee
  The largest funding award (EUR 273,288) and an MSCA-ITN structure, meaning ICI played a role in training the next generation of researchers in smart adhesive materials — a significant industrial commitment beyond typical project participation.
• Envision
  Addresses commercially relevant invisible building-integrated solar energy harvesting, a niche application area where ICI's materials expertise feeds directly into the clean energy transition for the built environment.