Lindholmen Science Park

Lindholmen Science Park from The Research Triangle Park on Vimeo.

Created in 2000, Lindholmen Science Park, is a privately held company owned by the regional government and 15 property owners. Lindholmen was created to help redevelop and reimagine a port area of Gothenburg City that was struggling to move beyond the shipping industry and into a future based on knowledge driven jobs and innovation. Today, under the leadership of CEO, Niklas Wahlberg, Lindholmen Science Park is home to 350 companies focused primarily on transit, media, design and ICT (Information & Communications Technology) as well as the globally recognized, Chalmers University.

Lindholmen uses the physical spaces of the core science park building (seen in the video) to gather the companies, employees, community and university. The leaders of the park also engage in specific projects that are identified through consensus between the companies and the government for advancement. The projects are then funded and executed by Niklas and his team with specific goals and deliverables. Niklas provides a useful briefing of the science park in the video above…

An interesting point that has come up in several conversations throughout my tour of science parks in Sweden is the use of the property. In the United States, it is standard practice to place Covenants and Land Use Restrictions on property designated as a research or science park. This is intended to restrict the types of companies and industries that can locate on the property with the intention of developing an area with highly technical, scientific and/or R&D based jobs. However, in Sweden, the application of such restrictions is prohibited by law. Therefore, science park leaders must maintain strong relationships and communications with the landowners of the science park in order to ensure a unified vision for the types of companies they wish to pursue and ultimately attract to the property.