Innovation districts are from the beginning an American model of how to build the best possible environment for innovation actors. Future by Lund and Vidensbyn in Lyngby-Taarbæk started thinking about how to create a Nordic model for innovation districts suitable for supporting companies that are in a start-up phase. In the project “Nordic Innovation District Development — NIDD”, the two university cities together investigated the prerequisites for a Nordic model. The collaboration was based on the fact that there are great similarities between the cities — including the fact that they are both successful university cities where knowledge, research and talent development will create many of the companies of the future. In both cities there is the important triple helix with the possibility of cooperation between business, municipality and university. Thus, many of the key pieces of the puzzle required to be successful innovation districts are in place. The question was which more components are required and which of them are missing.

“We want to find out what investments we need to make to ensure that early entrepreneurs stay in our respective environments and allow their businesses to grow from here,” Per Persson, Lund Municipality's business manager, told Vidensbyn at the start of the project. The Nordic countries and Europe are in fierce competition with the United States and China, especially in terms of technology development. With this project, we want to find out how we can create our own innovation districts that can support the creativity of the early and often young entrepreneurs and ensure that the high-tech and knowledge-heavy jobs of the future stay in our region.

Some ingredients that were known from the very beginning were that people should be able to work, live and have access to a good culture and leisure in a fairly small area. There are great benefits if the young have access to shared workplaces, shared laboratories, incubation environments and makerspace, a lively urban space with good access to meeting places, shared networking activities, low-cost housing, a well-functioning transport system and knowledge-intensive institutions and businesses nearby. The project aimed to analyze which parts the two cities can work on within the next 5-10 years.

- We see the idea of an innovation district as an important element in ensuring the future talent attraction for our universities and companies and thus future jobs, Marianna Lubanski, head of Lyngby-Taarbæk Vidensby told Videnbyn.dk.

On 11 October 2019, a first step was taken when Per Persson together with Swedish project manager Anders Bengtsson participated in discussions around “A Nordic Partnership Model for Sustainable Development” in Copenhagen. It was identified that the strengths of the Nordic Innovation Districts are that the distances in the Nordic countries are shorter, that there is a high level of trust between the actors, that it is a good environment for building strong partnerships and that there is a strong welfare state at the bottom. Weaknesses would be that companies move in small markets where it is difficult to scale up, that there may be a shortage of skilled staff, that many of the players stay in the same sector throughout their careers, and that there is a lack of global institutes and support structures for the start-ups to turn to.

During the day, it was discussed what a key ingredient partnerships can be in innovation districts.

“Through partnerships, you can create development projects and attract startups and talent,” said Swedish project manager Anders Bengtsson. Partnerships can also provide an opportunity to collaborate with the municipality, which can influence and drive sustainable urban development. In the innovation districts, researchers who have solutions can be linked to entrepreneurs and larger companies to scale up the solutions. Another interesting question is whether it is possible to create areas where it is possible to experiment with a freer regulatory framework. Finally, we also see that innovation districts can show politicians what solutions are possible.

The preliminary study will last for nine months and is funded by Interreg.

‍