DuPont closing famed Central Research & Development unit
Canadian Plastics
Materials DuPontClosure will eliminate 10 per cent of the company’s workforce in 2016.
Chemical maker DuPont Co. is closing its famous DuPont Central Research & Development, one of the most prestigious research organizations in the chemistry world.
Effective January 1, 2016, the Wilmington, Del.-based company will combine DuPont Science & Technology and DuPont Engineering into a single organization called Science & Engineering. The research restructuring plan will cut DuPont’s costs by US$700 million, largely by eliminating 10 per cent of the company’s workforce in 2016.
The news of the research restructuring comes on the heels of the December 11 announcement that DuPont will merge with Dow Chemical, with the combined company to be named DowDuPont.
Founded in the 1920s, DuPont Central R&D is one of the world’s oldest corporate research organizations. In 1987, DuPont chemist Charles J. Pedersen – who worked in the lab – shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn for work in synthesizing macrocyclic polyethers, also known as crown ethers.