Our R&D resources
In 2011, Saint-Gobain is investing €431 million in research and development at its main R&D centres and the one hundred or more development units established throughout the world, which employ 3,500 research workers.
R&D missions
R&D’s primary mission is to provide active and forward-looking support for the Group's various activities, leading to developments and innovations in terms of both products and processes, to serve our current markets and enhance our activities' competitive edge.
The second mission is to contribute to the Group's development and growth via technological innovation, enabling it to penetrate new markets. In line with the Group's development and leadership strategy on housing and construction markets, it must develop distinctive, groundbreaking technologies to meet the challenges of growth, energy and the environment.
R&D organisation
To meet these two demands, R&D organisation is focused on fully exploiting the vast resources of experience and technical skills available within the Group, while keeping in permanent contact with our customers and looking towards the future to anticipate technological advances and emerging markets. This organisation is based on maintaining close ties with the Group's activities, which each have their own R&D teams, monitoring the portfolio of ongoing research projects at both local and global levels, plus a specific approach dedicated to groundbreaking innovation.
Project-based management generates efficiency, appropriate resources, upstream provision for market considerations, intellectual property and production requirements, together with respect for health and the environment.
Six major enterprise-wide R&D centres
Six major enterprise-wide research Centres, maintain and develop key technologies and skills for the Group to a very high level. This is where work on the strategic programmes is carried out. Their size and multidisciplinary flexibility enables them to interact efficiently with the academic world, maintain an attentive watch on scientific advances, anticipate future applications and also recruit the highest quality managers.
More than ten dedicated R&D sites
R&D centres dedicated to specific activities, develop new products and procedures in close collaboration with the marketing and production teams, which maintain closer contact with customers.
