Evonik is restructuring its innovation operations in a major push to accelerate product development, strengthen customer focus, and drive future growth, with its newly launched Evonik Innovation Factory.
The innovation factory is expected to contribute up to €300 million to the company’s innovation-driven revenue growth by 2032.
The move comes as industries worldwide grapple with volatile raw material markets, rapid technological change, and mounting geopolitical uncertainty, prompting companies to rethink how they innovate and compete.
“In today’s environment, resilience is becoming a critical capability. Companies must rethink how they operate, innovate, grow, and remain successful,” says Lauren Kjeldsen, Evonik’s Executive Board member responsible for innovation.
“By focusing on innovation, we are strengthening both our resilience and our proximity to customers,” Kjeldsen adds.
At the heart of the transformation is a sweeping overhaul of Evonik’s Research, Development & Innovation (RD&I) organization. Under the new structure, around two-thirds of the company’s researchers will be embedded directly within business lines, allowing them to work more closely with customers while taking greater economic responsibility for innovation outcomes.
Research activities serving multiple business units, along with longer-term innovation projects, will continue to be managed centrally.
“We have deliberately aligned our innovation organization for speed and impact,” says Christian Eilbracht, Chief Innovation Officer of Evonik. “By clearly allocating responsibilities, we are accelerating decision-making processes and increasing the likelihood of success for innovations.”
The newly established Evonik Innovation Factory, created from the former Creavis unit, will serve as the company’s central engine for strategically important development programs.
“Our goal is to achieve market readiness for projects in an average of five years,” Eilbracht explains.
The initiative is built around two key innovation drivers. The first is combinatorial innovation, which integrates technologies, capabilities, and internal and external partners across the value chain. The second leverages existing internal and external knowledge, enabling researchers to enter development processes at more advanced stages and reduce time-to-market.
“Together, these approaches significantly shorten development timelines, improve the predictability of commercial success, and strengthen Evonik’s resilience to sudden market disruptions,” says Eilbracht.
The Innovation Factory will oversee five to seven major programs focused on Evonik’s three strategic growth areas: bio-based solutions, the energy transition, and the circular economy. The company expects these sectors to generate approximately €1.5 billion in additional revenue by 2032, with the Innovation Factory accounting for up to €300 million of that growth.
Despite ongoing economic and geopolitical headwinds, Evonik says it remains committed to innovation investment. In 2025, the company maintained its R&D intensity at around 3% of revenue, representing spending of approximately €418 million, compared with €459 million in 2024.
About 82% of that investment is directed toward business-driven development activities, while another 15% supports longer-term innovation projects.
The company is also advancing its sustainability agenda. Nearly 48% of Evonik’s revenue now comes from products classified as having above-average sustainability benefits, with the share of these Next Generation Solutions rising by three percentage points between 2024 and 2025.
Alongside innovation investments, Evonik is expanding its global footprint by aligning innovation, application, and production capabilities more closely with regional market demand. The company is developing innovations in regions with strong innovation ecosystems while locating production in high-growth markets.
Through this strategy, Evonik aims to strengthen industrial value chains, accelerate the commercialization of sustainable technologies, and reinforce its long-term competitiveness in an increasingly volatile global business environment.
