ScanBalt Campus – Kick Off Meeting

ScanBalt Campus – Coordinating Education and Research in ScanBalt BioRegion

Lund, Sweden – 14th June: ScanBalt Campus, a transnational showcase for a shared university structure  was today initiated at a conference at Lund University, Sweden. Behind it are 31 universities, regional networks, technology transfer organisations and companies from 11 countries located in ScanBalt BioRegion. To begin, a number of transnational centers in specific topics will be set up e.g. ScanBalt Faculty of Regenerative Medicine, ScanBalt IP Knowledge Center, ScanBalt Faculty of Environmental Biotechnology as well as an initiative in molecular diagnostics. ScanBalt Campus will – in a bottom up, flexible and modular way – create a critical mass for education and research that will enable ScanBalt BioRegion to compete at a global level.

By establishing ScanBalt Campus ScanBalt BioRegion has taken a significant step towards a more effective and better coordinated use of the resources in education and research and an increased mobility of knowledge and human resources.

To support ScanBalt Campus, ScanBalt Academy will be established as a body of prominent academic and industrial scientists that shall act as a strategic advisor and guarantee quality in ScanBalt Campus. Members of ScanBalt Academy will also provide high level lectures to partners in ScanBalt Campus.

The chairman of ScanBalt, Bo Samuelsson says “ We believe that ScanBalt Campus will be crucial for Northern Europe to be competitive within life sciences and biotechnology with e.g. the US and Japan by 2010. Only by sharing and better coordinating the use of the scarce resources can we reach that ambitious goal. It is now important more than ever to show that the European collaboration is not only about a treaty – it is also about concrete work and here the new EU members and north western Russia are our best allied to create wealth and prosperity”.

Børge Diderichsen, Vice President of the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, Denmark, says “For industry it is important to have access to world class competencies in ScanBalt BioRegion. Even in a globalized world geographical proximity is important. In addition ScanBalt Campus and ScanBalt itself can play an important role in attracting highly qualified ex-patriates to return to ScanBalt BioRegion.

The chairman of BioCon Valley, Horst Klinkmann, Germany, says, “ScanBalt BioRegion is Europe’s first metaregion. With ScanBalt Campus we are now establishing the necessary infrastructure to face the new challenges of education and research in a globalized and more competitive world, where the regions are playing an increasingly important role. We hope to be a role model for the rest of Europe”

The initiation of ScanBalt Campus is co-financed by the EU Interreg lllB-programme for regional development. For further information on ScanBalt Campus click here.

About ScanBalt and ScanBalt BioRegion
ScanBalt is a non profit association – co-financed by the Nordic Innovation Centre – within the meta-region that encompasses Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, northern part of Germany and north-western part of Russia. This meta-region is named ScanBalt BioRegion. ScanBalt will promote the development of ScanBalt BioRegion as a globally competitive meta-bioregion. For more information seewww.scanbalt.org
For further information please also call:

Bo Samuelsson, Chairman of ScanBalt, + 46 706 931 883
Peter Frank, Secretary General, ScanBalt, + 45 27141078