This folds is 30 years since Sweden’s first science park Ideon was opened. Amongst the businesses created over the years, there are two that stand out.
With the example of England started Ideon in Lund in 1983 to stimulate entrepreneurship around the university. Among the first tenants were Ericsson Radio Systems.
Lars Bengtsson, Professor of Industrial Economics at Lund University and his research colleague Kajsa Ahlgren has time for the 30th anniversary investigated the fate of companies that started in Ideon.
A similar study was done ten years ago when Ideon celebrated 20 years.
When Lars Bengtsson compare their data it is concluded that it is “pretty good.”
Ten years ago, there were 175 companies in the park. Today the figure is 313. The average number of employees has fallen from almost 13 to just 8. Sales on the other hand remains on average the same level as ten years ago.
-One explanation is that companies today procure more services, said Lars Bengtsson.
figures do not include former Sony Ericsson now called Sony Mobile and today has 2,000 employees in the Ideon.
the past ten years, 236 companies left the Ideon to establish outside the park. Together, they have 3700 employees shows Lars Bengtsson and Kajsa Ahlgren’s figures.
By comparison, moved 156 companies selected from the Ideon from 1993 to 2003.
Among all firms born at Ideon is there are two that stand out and become really big globally. The Axis Communications, which sells Web-based security cameras, and QlikTech, which sells software applications for business analysis.
Lars Bengtsson can not point out which company might be the next star. Compared to ten years ago, the number of companies that he describes as growth declined from 23 to 17. As a growth company is a company with at least 25 employees or 25 million in sales. It also includes companies that bought or listed companies.
If there is something missing at Ideon in the future so it is better conditions for internationalization, according to Lars Bengtsson.
-Ideon has a good reputation internationally but this would have to take a step up. There are, for example, not so much international venture capital, says Lars Bengtsson.
Crisis and revolution closure embossed Malmö during the early 1980s. The concern for the future was great also in the neighboring town of Lund. The idea to build a scientific village to encourage entrepreneurship around the universities came from Sture Forsen, then professor of physical chemistry and dean of the Chemistry Section of the Faculty of Engineering. He was fascinated by the efforts at that time were made in England.
1983 inaugurated Ideon and among the first tenants were Ericsson Radio Systems.
In the early 1990s, Ideon close to bankruptcy, but was saved by financier Eric penser and Lund University, who went in with new money.
As the world’s first technology park counts Stanford Research Park in the United States, from in 1948. Technology parks became popular in the United States and eventually also in England, where Europe’s first science park was opened in Cambridge in 1973.
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