Investing in science and technology to uphold the Convention
The Centre for Chemistry and Technology – the ChemTech Centre – will be a recognised leader in research, analysis, training, and capacity building. It will be a flagship for the OPCW and its broader community and will significantly enhance the capabilities and standing of the OPCW as the global leader in the effort to rid the world of chemical weapons.
The Project
The OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store was inaugurated in 1996 in the town of Rijswijk, which is just outside The Hague. Initially, the work of the Laboratory and Equipment Store focused primarily on supporting the OPCW’s demilitarisation activities and missions, routine inspections of industrial facilities for verification purposes, and international cooperation and assistance activities.
In recent years, however, the work of the Laboratory and Equipment Store has changed and grown significantly to reflect States Parties’ changing and growing requirements. Currently, these include responding to the emergence of new chemical weapons threats, which require the development of new and improved verification tools and expanded capabilities to conduct non-routine missions, and providing greater support for international cooperation and assistance activities.
The growing and evolving activities of the Laboratory and Equipment Store, however, have led to increasingly severe space constraints in the Rijswijk facility, which is a rented facility that has no possibility for expansion. Moreover, the facility’s infrastructure is aging as no major infrastructure upgrades have been undertaken since the OPCW’s arrival.
To meet the future needs of the Laboratory and Equipment Store, in 2017 the Technical Secretariat began to study options for upgrading their capabilities. Between September and November 2017, the Technical Secretariat prepared a report describing the need, initial estimated cost, and initial estimated timeline for a project to construct a new facility for the Laboratory and Equipment Store. The Needs Statement was presented to State Parties at the Twenty-Second Session of the Conference of the States Parties in November 2017, and the project to construct the new ChemTech Centre began.


Building for the future
The scope of the project primarily consists of the construction of the new ChemTech Centre, which will provide enhanced and enlarged facilities for the Laboratory, Equipment Store, and training, as well as the land and infrastructure required to accommodate and operate the building. The project scope additionally includes the decommissioning of the current facility in Rijswijk and the transition from this facility to the ChemTech Centre.
Budget & Timeline
The project has a budget of €33.5M that is exclusively funded by voluntary contributions to the ChemTech Centre Trust Fund. Approximately €100,000 is required to fully fund the project.
The ChemTech Centre is currently planned to become operational at the end of 2022.
Contributions
OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias expresses gratitude to all contributors to the project, and invites to all OPCW Member States in a position to make any contribution — regardless of size — to do so.
Contributor |
Amount |
Algeria |
€ 15,000 |
Andorra |
€ 5,000 |
Angola |
€ 25,000 |
Australia |
AUD 200,000 |
Bangladesh |
€ 13,339 |
Belgium |
€ 2,000,000 |
Canada |
CAD 10,000,000 |
Chile |
€ 13,000 |
China |
€ 27,420 |
Cyprus |
€ 25,000 |
Czech Republic |
€ 19,491 |
Estonia |
€ 10,000 |
Finland |
€ 100,000 |
France |
€ 1,200,000 |
Germany |
€ 1,500,000 |
Greece |
€ 30,000 |
Hungary |
€ 35,000 |
Indonesia |
Rp 165,000,000 |
Ireland |
€ 30,000 |
Italy |
€ 150,000 |
Japan |
€ 2,400,000 |
Kazakhstan |
€ 20,000 |
Lithuania |
€ 10,000 |
Luxembourg |
€ 17,000 |
Malaysia |
€ 10,000 |
Morocco |
€ 15,000 |
Netherlands |
€ 2,300,000 |
New Zealand |
€ 200,000 |
Pakistan |
€ 10,000 |
Peru |
€ 9,050 |
Poland |
€ 100,000 |
Portugal |
€ 40,000 |
Republic of Korea |
€ 311,092 |
Romania |
€ 9,847 |
Slovakia |
€ 30,000 |
Slovenia |
€ 10,000 |
Spain |
€ 120,000 |
Sweden |
€ 38,319 |
Switzerland |
€ 283,262 |
Thailand |
THB 450,000 |
Turkey |
€ 30,000 |
United Arab Emirates |
€ 100,000 |
United Kingdom |
€ 1,042,394 |
United States |
€ 6,153,000 |
European Union |
€ 8,131,000 |
Israel, signatory |
€ 12,500 |
Personal contributions |
€ 30,000 |
Total |
€ 33,348,535 |
Documents
Presentations
Title | Date |
---|---|
Brochure: OPCW ChemTech Centre Project Update, October 2020 | 6 October 2020 |