Green Innovation Park - focus on development of sustainable services and products
The old machine hall in the heart of the Alnarp campus has been given a new role. Sleeping Beauty has been awoken, with the establishment of a new hub for collaboration between researchers, students and business, emphasising development of sustainable services and products.
Niclas Östlund of SLU Holding sees Green Innovation Park GIP in Alnarp as a hub for collaboration between academia and business, and a base for the development of innovations.
Collaboration on campus is not really anything new for the players on the Alnarp campus. Contacts have been established, and there are around 30 companies in the network. Green Innovation Park makes it possible to take the next step and offer somewhere where companies, researchers and students can meet and work together.
“We’ve been lacking a hub for collaboration – a physical location for collaboration and interdisciplinary learning. What we can now do is offer companies with innovative strength access to an environment where ideas and knowledge are taken further, to the benefit of society – knowledge and experience that may otherwise be difficult to access. Green Innovation Park is a meeting place where people with different skills meet – a base for development and collaboration,” says Niclas Östlund, business developer for Green Innovation Park, SLU Holding in Alnarp.
A strong driving force and a focus on a sustainable future
The target group for Green Innovation Park is companies and organisations with close links to academia that wish to work towards a sustainable future, or are already doing so. These are players who are driven, and see added value in being part of a cluster involving students and researchers with new knowledge and new ideas. As a first step, there is about 450 m2 of open office space. The next step involves adding the same area of office space. And right from the start, events, breakfast meetings and activities are in progress, for active knowledge transfer and, not least, to speed up the creation of relationships and new contacts.
Valuable knowledge that can create new business
“For entrepreneurs and companies as well as researchers and students, Green Innovation Park is an interface and an opportunity to take ideas and research further. Researchers can get a direct link to the application of their research here, and can verify their theories and get impulses and ideas for further research work. Establishing contacts with industry at an early stage can speed up the process and increase the possibility of financing. Gaining early access to knowledge you’re lacking about the industry or the target group has benefits, says Niclas.
The same applies to companies and organisations focusing on the development of sustainable services and products. Collaboration brings benefits.
“Yes, of course. This is somewhere where you can access the knowledge available at the university – knowledge that may otherwise be hard to find if you don’t have your own personal contacts. Green Innovation Park can give you the right guidance. The cluster itself gives companies and entrepreneurs benefits. There’s no similar cluster with the same emphasis on sustainability and sustainable development. There’s valuable knowledge here that can lead to the sustainable solutions of the future and create new business. Not only together with researchers and students but also with other companies with the same drive and the ambition to develop sustainable solutions”, says Niclas
There are many problem areas and challenges, and the solutions are complicated.
Nicklas Östlund, Green Innovation Park Alnarp
Collaboration so as to meet major challenges
“Without collaboration it’s hard to find solutions, and it’s even harder to create an impact/effect if you’re working on your own rather than in close contact with others. Complex issues and challenges benefit from collaboration”, says Niclas.
Niclas sees the involvement of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and SLU Holding in establishing Green Innovation Park together with the property company Akademiska Hus as a natural development and important work. As well as on the Alnarp campus, Green Innovation Park is to be found on the Ultuna campus in Uppsala, and in the long term operations will also be established in Umeå and Skara, where the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has its operations.
Green Innovation Park – meeting places all over Sweden
“The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences is a university with top expertise in the field of sustainability. We are to be found at various locations in the country, and wish to contribute to knowledge transfer. Creating meeting places where researchers, students and companies that develop sustainable services and products meet and collaborate feels natural and important,” says Niclas Östlund, business developer for Green Innovation Park, SLU Holding Campus Alnarp.
Read more about Green Innovation Park.
A focus on reuse and recycling
Green Innovation Park Campus Alnarp was inaugurated at the beginning of autumn 2021. The premises are in the middle of the campus, and after many years with a weak identity on the site they have now been given a new role and a clear identity of their own. The old machine hall has been transformed into a meeting point for researchers, students and companies focusing on the development of sustainable services and products, emphasising reuse and recycling. If you wish to know more about the premises, please contact Niclas Östlund.
