In early November, Lindholmen Science Park moved to Brussels for a day. The aim was to show EU politicians and other decision makers what Göteborg’s leading collaboration arena stands for and present Lindholmen’s current projects and collaborations.

Lindholmen Science Park goes Brussels

The possibility of discussing international cluster collaborations arose in the form of an initiative from West Sweden, which is organising four separate conference days in Brussels as part of the official programme under the Swedish EU presidency. The City of Göteborg will host one of these conference days.

Göteborg’s inner city is under intensive development, and today also includes Lindholmen’s cluster of companies and training programmes focusing on products and services in intelligent vehicles and transport systems, modern media and mobile broadband. Lindholmen Science Park has been under intensive development for almost ten years. New buildings have been built, while old buildings on the waterfront have provided excellent premises for today’s modern companies. This part of the city, which for many years was an inaccessible harbour area filled with stacks of containers, is now bursting with innovative force and development potential.

Lindholmen Science Park is a cluster that needs to be experienced in its proper surroundings in order to fully appreciate its dignity as a contemporary meeting place for industry, higher education and research. The park teems with international, highly qualified and creative individuals. With 17,000 people working in a relatively limited space, the park is a powerful driving force. Its various activities from the industrial and higher education sectors create a powerful development environment of key importance to West Sweden’s regional growth.

Cluster collaboration for the future transport industry

The conference in Brussels was entitled “Cluster Collaboration for Sustainable Development”, and focused on opportunities and challenges in the future transport industry. More than 150 people had accepted the invitation, and the conference hall of the Committee of the Regions was packed with participants from the European Parliament, the European Commission and various organisations in Brussels, represented by some fifteen European countries.

Niklas Wahlberg, President and CEO of Lindholmen Science Park, introduced the conference and presented Lindholmen’s strength areas. The cluster aims to be a European resource prepared for collaboration in similar environments in Europe. Wahlberg referred to several examples from the research environment that was to be presented during the afternoon’s guided tours of the exhibition area.

The Swedish Government was represented at the conference by Jonas Bjelfvenstam, Director General of the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). He began by discussing the EU’s role in leading a global agreement for climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. He also stressed that investment in research today is vital to tomorrow’s society. The transport sector plays a key role in solving complex logistics problems, and cooperation is needed at different levels to reduce greenhouse gases. At the conference, Nikos Pantalos from the European Commissions DG Enterprise , discussed how the EU is working with the regulation perspective behind increased cluster collaboration and the development of a cluster policy to strengthen the environments with practical tools and policies. Olle Ludvigsson, member of the EU Parliament, spoke about cluster collaboration from the perspective of the EU Parliament, where environmentally friendly transport solutions are a central issue. He described Lindholmen Science Park as the meeting place for sustainable Sweden, and maintained that clusters are promoting research and creating new jobs.

Anneli Hulthén, Chairman of Göteborg City Executive Board, described the regional perspective on collaboration. The Göteborg Region’s vision is for the region’s population to expand to 1.5 million inhabitants 2020. There is a long tradition of constant development between the city, industry and universities. There is a strong link to sustainable transport as a prerequisite for continued future development.

Clusters that support development of a sustainable society

Chalmers University of Technology was represented by President and CEO Karin Markides. Chalmers collaborates with other universities in the region, and has a long tradition of international networking with other knowledge clusters. The role of universities has changed; today higher education, research and innovation form a knowledge triangle. The research infrastructure, focus on entrepreneurship and open innovation are three key factors in that triangle, and identifying the interested parties is the most important prerequisite in order for the actual system to work.

Hasse Johansson, Scania’s Executive Vice President and Director of Research and Development, discussed collaboration from an industrial perspective. The most important factor is having access to highly qualified graduates and experienced engineers.

The subsequent round table discussion was also attended by Jean-Dominique Wagret from the French transport cluster Movéo and Thomas Meissner from TSB-FAV, an automotive cluster in Berlin.

The afternoon, opened by Mr Gussetti Lucio, Director of the Consultative Works at the Committee of the Regions, was dedicated to a guided tour, during which the participants were introduced to Lindholmen’s research environments and various European projects were presented in the form of Lab Environments. These projects included the Göteborg visualisation centre, the Safer automotive and transport centre, the EU CVIS project and a demonstration of charging stations for electric cars. Berlin presented the cluster TSB-FAV, which has conducted a major eMobility initiative involving electric cars.

The event was an excellent opportunity to discuss cluster collaboration with other leading European players. The participants made many new, valuable contacts, and the three organisers concluded that the conference had been highly inspiring and successful.