The Plastics Innovation Competence Center (PICC), is a multi-disciplinary one-stop industrial R&D center for innovative short and long term science and technology developments in the field of plastics. It is a location and platform for bringing academics and industrialists together for jointly addressing the challenges in plastics materials development, processing, and product design through innovative approaches. Tailored problem solving is combined with breakthrough R&D focused on the position in the circular economy of conventional plastics and novel nature-inspired synthetic organic materials by using modeling and novel processing technologies.

In this context, on January 1st 2018, a new industrial R&D collaboration was started combining the skills of three institutes of HEIA-FR institutes to address some of the science and technology challenges of three industrial partners: Johnson Electric International located in Murten (FR), WAGO Contact of Domdidier (FR), and DuPont International Operations with its European technical center in Meyrin (GE). The combined knowledge and expertise of the Institute of Applied Plastics Research (iRAP), the Institute for Chemical Technology (Chemtech) and the Institute for Complex Systems (IcoSys) enables to offer complete and pragmatic industrial solutions.

The industrial R&D program covers a four years period to advance industrial innovations that benefit the application spaces of Johnson Electric International, WAGO Contact, and DuPont International Operations. The PICC is poised to closely collaborate and leverage all its resources to creatively assist in the economic success of its industry partners.

Rudolf Koopmans
PICC director
Passage du Cardinal 1, 1700 Fribourg