News

Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Tokyo; President: Yasuhiko Saitoh) is proud to announce the establishment of the Chihiro Kanagawa Foundation for Future Chemistry. The Board of Directors has already approved initial funding for the operations of the Foundation.

Chihiro Kanagawa, who passed away on January 1 this year, served as President of Shin-Etsu Chemicals from August 1990 and oversaw an impressive expansion of the business, bringing substantial increases to its sales, profits, and market value. While maintaining the core task of consolidating and further growing existing business areas, Kanagawa believed that developing new areas of business was essential for the sustained growth of the organization. To that end, he set up in 1991 the Z Committee, a body for new product development, with himself as the chair. Considerable resources were channeled through this body to the research of new business areas. Over the years, the Z Committee has made impressive contributions to company revenues through the commercialization of exciting new technologies including photoresists, mask blanks, k-polymers, and pellicles.

To preserve Mr. Kanagawa’s legacy of championing new areas of business for the future as a code of conduct for Shin-Etsu and to contribute to the sustainable development of society by fostering chemical scientists and engineers who will broadly shape the future of chemistry and by supporting their research, it has been decided to establish the Chihiro Kanagawa Chemistry of the Future Foundation, named in honor of our former president.

Key facts

1. Name: Chihiro Kanagawa Foundation for Future Chemistry
2. Purpose: To contribute to the sustainable development of society by fostering chemical scientists and engineers who will broadly shape the future of chemistry and by supporting their research
3. Date of establishment: End of June 2023 (TBC)
4. Officials: Selected internal staff and external experts by invitation
5. Forms of support: Primarily research grants and training/education subsidies including overseas study programs