Case Study: VCW (German Chemical Society) sparks industry-wide open innovation and high member engagement with HYPE Innovation's HYPE GO!

Open Innovation in the Chemical Industry with HYPE GO

VCW, the Association for Chemistry and Economics and an independent section of the German Chemical Society with over 30,000 members, wanted to test how social media and crowdsourcing could improve cross‑company and academia collaboration in the chemical industry ahead of its 2013 autumn conference. Key challenges were defining “Social Chemistry,” finding ways to boost cooperation between industry and research, and demonstrating practical, user‑friendly online collaboration tools to a largely non‑technical membership.

VCW quickly deployed the HYPE GO! SaaS platform to run a five‑week “Social Chemistry – Social Media in the Chemical Industry” idea campaign, enabling submissions, comments, voting, and moderator-driven enrichment. The campaign attracted about 140 participants, produced a submission rate over 20% with nearly three comments per idea, and generated actionable insights and proposals that fed the conference discussion — while giving members first‑hand experience of a realistic, low‑maintenance open innovation platform.

VCW - German Chemical Society

Thomas Beißwenger

President