Unilever today unveiled plans to develop a new Global Innovation Centre in New Haven, Connecticut, opening by spring 2029. The centre will be a leading hub for the company’s research and development for its personal care, beauty and wellbeing businesses in the U.S. and globally.

• Opening by spring 2029, new global innovation centre deepens company’s $15bn investment in U.S. market over past decade to drive U.S. and global growth
• Advanced R&D capabilities will connect science, technology, and culture to create breakthrough products across personal care, beauty and wellbeing brands
• Enables faster scaling of product development via AI capabilities and enhances partnerships via access to leading biosciences and emerging quantum ecosystem of talent, academia, technology partners and consumers
• Drives desirability and growth for Unilever brands, which serve 95% of U.S. households and 3.7 billion people globally, every day
• Supports Unilever’s strategy to become a sharper, focused personal care, beauty and wellbeing company

Photo courtesy of Unispace

The centre further propels Unilever’s growth strategy in the U.S. market, raising the bar for research and development in the consumer goods industry and powering the company’s portfolio of innovative and desirable brands. Centrally located in one of the world’s fastest-growing biosciences innovation clusters, the digital-first and AI-powered centre will deliver deeper insights to fuel Unilever’s ambition of reshaping product categories. The centre will advance how Unilever’s teams of scientists and experts push the boundaries of the fundamental differentiators that make the company’s brands distinct and products desirable: superior science, aesthetics and sensorials.

The centre brings together a new and differentiated combination of assets and capabilities that will accelerate breakthroughs and enable Unilever’s brands to bring the next generation of market-making beauty, wellbeing and personal care products to people faster:

• New technologies to drive scale and speed to market: Powered by AI and emerging quantum capabilities, the centre positions Unilever to be the leading innovator in the consumer goods sector. Fuelled by the State of Connecticut and private investment, the computational power of quantum will accelerate advanced materials discovery in the coming decades, unlocking new possibilities for market-making products that drive desire by scale.
• End-to-end integration of the R&D process to push the boundaries of desirable products: All R&D capabilities — including formulation, fragrance creation, packaging design and consumer insights — will be housed under one roof. By co-locating every stage of the innovation cycle, the centre will enable deeper collaboration to further accelerate product development.
• Located in the heart of the New Haven biosciences ecosystem: With access to dozens of world-class universities, hundreds of companies and some of the brightest minds in the world, the centre places Unilever’s U.S. R&D at the heart of innovation in bioscience, building on the company’s expertise in understanding skin biology, the microbiome and the skin-brain axis. The centre will enhance Unilever scientists’ use of cutting-edge neuroscience to create the next generation of desirable products, connecting sensory attributes like texture, fragrance and bioactives with emotional, behavioural and wellness responses.

The centre advances Unilever’s strategy to become a sharper, focused personal care, beauty and wellbeing company, built upon shared capabilities across science-led innovation, demand creation and operational execution. Unilever will invest $270 million in the project over the long term, including $50 million in capital expenditure. Total combined investment of public and private funds in the centre will exceed $300 million. This investment builds on nearly $15 billion invested in Unilever’s U.S. business over the past decade, across both acquisitions and capital projects.

Approximately 300 employees will work at the centre. It will succeed Unilever’s existing R&D facility in Trumbull, Connecticut, which has operated since 1972, marking the next chapter of Unilever’s long partnership with the State of Connecticut and its scientific community.

Herrish Patel, President of Unilever USA and CEO of Personal Care North America, said: “New Haven gets us to the future faster. Our Global Innovation Centre is where we’ll innovate at the intersection of science, technology and culture — for the U.S. and for the world. We will build on our deep heritage of innovation to develop the next generation of brands and products that people love.

“As part of Unilever’s global network of innovation hubs, the centre will connect closely with our other leading locations worldwide, sharing technology, insights, and breakthrough ideas to accelerate innovation at scale. As the U.S. becomes a centre of gravity for Unilever, we’re harnessing the best of American innovation to match our growth ambition here in the U.S. and around the world.”

Specific capabilities to be housed at the centre include:

• Global centre for skin care and cleansing, anchoring the site and powering the future of Unilever’s skin care and cleansing business through advanced capabilities, building on its long legacy of product innovation in the U.S.
• Polycultural skin and hair centre of excellence, specialising in creating ingredients and products that address the unmet needs of millions of consumers
• Human performance lab, generating unprecedented new data and insights into human physiology, enabling on-site testing of ingestibles, and accelerating growth across Unilever’s wellbeing brands
• Unilever Fragrance House, with perfumists, chemists and packaging designers working together from the earliest stages of development, placing fragrance at the heart of product creation and sensory experience
• Packaging innovation studio, incorporating real-time consumer feedback to accelerate the development of prototypes that perform across physical and digital shelves

Richard Slater, Unilever Chief Research & Development Officer, said: “Behind every Unilever product is world-leading science that delivers superior performance, combined with design, fragrance and sensory experiences that make our brands distinctive. Our new Global Innovation Centre will bring these capabilities together to develop new, category-defining innovations in the U.S., and scale globally. The real shift here is integration and speed: science, design and sensorials working as one, with AI and partnerships accelerating every stage of innovation.”

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said: “Unilever’s decision to make this investment in New Haven reaffirms Connecticut’s global reputation as a leader in innovation, research and development, and discovery. This innovation centre will serve as an important foundational piece for this burgeoning hub that will not only strengthen New Haven’s existing tech centres but will also boost our innovation ecosystem statewide. I am glad we have Unilever as a valued member of Connecticut’s growing business community, and I look forward to this company continuing to succeed here for many years to come.”