Centre for Chemistry and Technology

The ChemTech Centre is an important upgrade to the OPCW’s research, operational, analytical and capacity building capabilities. It houses the OPCW Laboratory, the Technology and Training Hub, an indoor training area, and a fit for purpose instruction space. The Centre creates synergies for knowledge sharing, scientific and technical collaboration, and capacity building activities.

Investing in Science and Technology 

The OPCW’s mission goes beyond the destruction of all declared chemical weapons stockpiles. With thousands of new chemicals discovered every day and accelerated technological progress in areas such as artificial intelligence, the threat of chemical weapons re-emergence becomes increasingly acute. In addition, the ever-changing international security environment is re-shaping the global non-proliferation and disarmament regime. The ChemTech Centre ensures that the Organisation remains fit for purpose to address these issues and ensure that chemistry is used only to advance peace, progress and prosperity in both developed and developing countries.   

Team

Keep pace with current threats and remain fit for purpose ahead of future threats

Research

Conduct research activities to support and strengthen the verification toolkit – on its own, or in cooperation with partner laboratories, or partners in academia

Knowledge Repository

Act as a knowledge repository to tackle chemical threats worldwide

Facilitate

Enhance the Secretariat’s capability to assist and provide critical support and training for OPCW Member States in research and capacity building activities

Customs

Augment capability to test, evaluate and deploy equipment

Team

Provide in-house capacity building programmes for OPCW Member States

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.

Lab
Lab

Budget & Timeline

The project has a budget of €33.5M that is exclusively funded by voluntary contributions to the ChemTech Centre Trust Fund.

Contributions

OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias expresses gratitude to all contributors to the project.

 

Contributor

Amount

Algeria

€ 15,000

Andorra

€ 16,000

Angola

€ 25,000

Australia

AUD 350,000

Bangladesh

€ 13,339

Belgium

€ 2,000,000

Brazil

€ 49,426

Cameroon

€ 30,490

Canada

CAD 10,000,000
(€ 6,574,459)

Chile

€ 13,000

China

USD $ 30,000

Croatia

€ 10,000

Cyprus

€ 45,000 

Czech Republic

€ 19,491

Estonia

€ 10,000

Finland

€ 100,000

France

€ 1,400,000

Germany

€ 1,500,000

Greece

€ 30,000

Hungary

€ 35,000

India

€ 20,000

Indonesia

Rp 165,000,000

Ireland

€ 30,000

Italy

€ 200,000

Japan

€ 2,400,000

Kazakhstan

€ 20,000

Lithuania

€ 10,000

Luxembourg

€ 17,000

Malaysia

€ 10,000

Malta

€ 10,000

Mexico

€ 5,000

Morocco

€ 15,000

Netherlands

€ 2,300,000

New Zealand

€ 200,000

Norway

€ 24,349

Pakistan

€ 10,000

Panama

€ 5,000

Peru

USD $ 10,000

Philippines

USD $ 15,000

Poland

€ 100,000

Portugal

€ 40,000

Qatar

€ 100,000

Republic of Korea

€ 455,231

Romania

€ 9,847

San Marino

€ 1,000

Saudi Arabia

€ 50,000

Slovakia

€ 30,000

Slovenia

€ 10,000

Spain

 € 260,000

Sweden

€ 38,319

Switzerland

 € 283,262

Thailand

 THB 450,000

Türkiye

€ 30,000

United Arab Emirates

€ 100,000

United Kingdom

€ 1,044,707

United States*

USD $ 6,995,767

European Union

€ 8,131,000

Israel, signatory

€ 12,500

The American Chemical Society

USD $ 10,000

The European Chemical Society EuChemS

€ 1,000

German Chemical Society GDCh

€ 1,000

International Centre for Chemical Safety and Security

€ 5,000

Personal contributions

€ 35,000

Royal Netherlands Chemical Society

€ 2,500

Royal Society of Chemistry

GBP £ 5,000

Total

€ 34,637,015

*The project is partially sponsored by the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program of the United States Department of Defense. The content of the information in this article does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Federal Government of the United States, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

Documents

Document Symbol Title Date
S/2193/2023 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 20 July 2023
S/2136/2023 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 17 February 2023
S/2119/2022 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Centre for Chemistry and Technology: Inauguration Ceremony 12 May 2023 14 December 2022
S/2112/2022 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 17 November 2022
S/2072/2022 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 24 June 2022
S/2026/2022 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 17 February 2022
S/2003/2021 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 9 November 2021
S/1965/2021 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 24 June 2021
S/1956/2021 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 17 May 2021
S/1912/2020 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 16 November 2020
S/1881/2020 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 30 June 2020
S/1859/2020* Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 9 March 2020
S/1769/2019 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Progress in the Project to Upgrade the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 9 July 2019
S/1564/2017/Corr.1 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Needs Statement for Upgrading the OPCW Chemical Laboratory to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology - Corrigendum 3 January 2018
S/1564/2017 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Needs Statement for Upgrading the OPCW Chemical Laboratory to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 22 December 2017
S/1561/2017 Note by the Technical Secretariat: Request from the Director-General to States Parties for Voluntary Contributions to a New Trust Fund for Upgrading the OPCW Chemical Laboratory to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 8 December 2017
S/1512/2017 Upgrading the OPCW Chemical Laboratory to a Centre for Chemistry and Technology 10 July 2017

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre – construction summary – May 2023

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction summary through May 2023

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress – March 2023

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress through March 2023

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre Construction Progress – November 2022

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress through November 2022

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre Construction Progress – September 2022

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress through September 2022

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre Construction Progress – May 2022

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress through May 2022

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre Construction Progress – Feb 2022

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress through February 2022

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre Construction Progress – Nov 2021

See the OPCW ChemTech Centre construction progress through November 2021

Video: OPCW ChemTech Centre

22 September 2021

Learn about the OPCW Centre for Chemistry and Technology, and how the OPCW and the international community use science and technology to uphold the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Video: ChemTech Centre VR Tour

29 July 2020

Take a virtual tour of the future OPCW ChemTech Centre.

Video: ChemTech Centre Preliminary Design Presentation for States Parties

24 April 2020

Recording of virtual presentation.