General Center of R&D The Toagosei Group aims to continually develop distinctive, highly-functional products while also creating new products and businesses to support sustainable growth as a valuecreating, highly profitable corporate group. Research and development are the starting point in this endeavor, and form the vanguard of Group activities. At Toagosei, their hub is the General Center of R&D, completed in the autumn of 2010. The layout of the Center is geared to the functions of each particular laboratory, and also to facilitating discussion and exchange of views among researchers. In addition to making best use of the facilities and equipment at the General Center of R&D, we are planning to reform R&D management in the new medium-term management plan beginning in 2011, aiming at “continuous launching of new products,” our Group vision for 2020. As stated our slogan “further growth through collaborative expertise,” the Reforming management to realize a new vision for Toagosei new plan calls for individual researchers to exchange ideas and for cooperation between our two research arms, the operations management division and the corporate management division, as well as alliances among different offices of the operations management division. In the corporate management division, the goal is to refine and strengthen basic analytical, evaluation and synthesis technologies, and rapidly establish key technologies necessary for various kinds of development, to feed into the operations management division. In addition, we are strengthening alliances between departments and accelerating the pace of R&D. With regard to research topics, we are also aiming to improve our planning and project-proposal capabilities. As a result of these initiatives, we expect to create new products, increase earnings from established core products, and develop our high-value-added product operations into highly profitable businesses. Research & Development Changing the focus from providing facilities to reforming management 16 Annual Report 2010