Science Parks

East Sweden has two principal science parks: Mjärdevi Science Park and the Norrköping Science Park. Both of these parks contain active business incubators with what is often called "soft landing" facilities for international companies who are interested in testing the Swedish market while paying lower initial rates and enjoying some of the support services provided to regional start-up companies.
 
Some background information on the science parks of East Sweden:
 
One could say that the concept for a research park in Linköping, Sweden originated around the same time as Sophia Antipolis in France and Heriott Watt Technology Park in Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 
Linköping is located about 200 km/120 miles southwest of the city of Stockholm in a region known as Östergötland or East Sweden.  Linköping and its twin city Norrköping just 30 miles away, make up the fourth largest population area in Sweden and the region is headquarters to SAAB Aerospace, Holman Paper, SCA Packaging, Swedish Meats, and many other companies that reflect a diversity of industries including agriculture, aeronautics, electronics, simulation, medical diagnostics, transport and logistics, and education. The region is home to Linköping University and a large university medical center as well as one of two of Sweden's principal clinical trials research centers.
 
Linköping University evolved as the result of the technology spinning out of SAAB and because of the technology that would ultimately be needed by SAAB to guarantee its cutting edge superiority in many sectors of the aerospace industry.  The university began as a technical college in 1965 with technical and medical education. The school grew with incredible speed and intensity and by 1970 it was the 7th most important school of higher education in Sweden. By 1975 it was designated as Linköping University and today the university has nearly 27,000 students.
 
The interest in the technical college, both locally and nationally, led the municipality to develop a master plan which would reserve an additional 150 acres of land adjacent to the university that might eventually serve as a location to companies that had an interest in cooperating with the university.
 
The natural synergies between the university and SAAB created a market for engineering students who were interested in starting their own companies, so in the late 70s the municipality of Linköping leased space in an industrial area approximately one mile from the university that became known as "Teknik Byn" or the Technology Village. With support from the National Development Fund (NUTEK), the city was able to lease small offices to students who were exploiting their university-based technology. The companies were supported with basic services. No one at this time knew that there would be something called an incubator one day. The Technology Village helped to create 40 companies between 1981 and 1984. Then, in 1984, the first new building of the Mjärdevi Research Park on that reserved land near the university opened and the incubator, eventually, found its way from Technology Village to the new site.
 
Mjärdevi Science Park is currently home to 170 companies with some 4,500 employees and a close neighbour of Linköping University. The majority of the companies are active in five fields of expertise where Mjärdevi is absolutely world class: telecommunications, software development, electronics and vehicle safety. Linköping University is not, however, the only influential force behind Mjärdevi.
 
Several other research organisations are located in the area, such as the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), the National Road and Transportation Research Institute (VTI) and the National Supercomputer Centre (NSC).
 
Several international companies have chosen to establish operations at Mjärdevi, including Ericsson, Fujitsu, Flextronics, Autoliv and Hewlett Packard. There are also many small innovative high-tech enterprises established in Mjärdevi and a great number of these enterprises are spin-off companies from Linköping University. Mjärdevi offers a variety of services to the companies that choose to locate here. Assistance is given in helping the companies establish contact with researchers and students, local and regional authorities, as well as networking with other high-tech companies in the park and in other parks.
In the last ten years, since the opening of the the Linköping University campus in Norrköping, another science park has evolved which cooperates closely with Mjärdevi. Until recently, this park has been known as the Pronova Science Park, but its name was changed to the Norrköping Science Park in 2006.
This park is for entrepreneurs and knowledge intensive companies. Today it is home to 80 companies, is located in the centre of Norrköping, next to the the Norrköping campus. There is a start-up house in the park, which today contains nine newly started knowledge based companies. In close co-operation with Linköping University and Campus Norrköping, Like the Mjärdevi Business Incubator, the science park arranges Entrepreneurship and New Business Development Programmes and develops special environments for start-up companies. The park collaborates in global networks with other science parks, universities and colleges.

In 2006, as a function of the ongoing collaboration of the networks within the region's innovation system, the two incubators began to integrate their operations even more closely. In 2007 the incubators will be a single legal entity and wholly owned by Linköping University. 
 
Editor: Mary Spaeth