Creative spaces in Lund provide unique opportunities
In Lund there are many specialized infrastructures and competencies that are so prominent in their fields that they actually attract people from other parts of the world to come and work in Lund. This is of course a very important part of what Lund Innovation District can offer. During EU Days Lund 2023, five such actors participated, all related to Lund University - Frida Splendido, from Humanist Laboratory, Nicolò Dell'Unto, from DarkLab (Laboratory of Digital Archaeology), Ebba Fåhraeus, SMiLE Incubator AB, Ola Wallberg Chemical Engineering and Biotech Heights/Lund University and Anders Mikkelsen, NanoLund and Lund NanoLab.
The discussions concerned, among other things, the ecosystem in Lund, where for many it is the university and the companies that are the driving force, but which also includes many other actors, ranging from the accumulation of serial entrepreneurs to investors. Smile Incubator AB is a non-profit business incubator specialising in life science and for the incubator all these parts of the ecosystem are important. The incubator is a place where entrepreneurs and researchers commercialize their life science innovations and where they can get help from various experts. SMiLE Incubator AB has access to a full-scale lab in Astra Zeneca's old premises and retains older infrastructure and new equipment suitable for food technology, among other things.
- We have about forty nationalities in the incubator, says Ebba Fåhraeus, CEO at SMiLE Incubator AB. Many come to do their doctoral thesis or postdoc at Lund University but then stay because living conditions are good. There is also a support system and actors around this that make them stay. I hope that some of the world's leading researchers who are attracted to ESS and MAX IV will also start companies and stay in Lund, and there we at Smile can play a role for researchers in the fields of life science and food, for example.
Another activity is the Humanist Laboratory which annually has about 500 users from all over the university. The lab has advanced instruments that are used for a wide variety of studies of things that can be related to human behavior or any form of communication behavior. Earlier, during Lund EU Days, a panel discussion was held with some of Lund's major companies, where it was emphasized how important it is to ensure that there are more engineers to hire. Frida Splendido, deputy director at the Humanist Laboratory, agreed to this.
- We need not only engineers in Lund, but also people who can effectively communicate things, who know how language works and how to get out what you want to tell. Right now, one of our users is working with voice interpretation to see how the authorities should work to communicate so that the entire population is reached. As new technologies begin to be used, such as Chat GPT, we also need language technology expertise and the humanistic point of view of what is being created.
One of the universities that the Humanities Laboratory collaborates with is DarkLab (The Lund University Digital Archaeology Laboratory) . (Link to article about the collaboration.) This is a research infrastructure focused on the development of projects aimed at mapping and analyzing archaeological sites using 3D combined technology. The archaeologists work with drones, robots, sensors, among other things, and their work leaves an imprint not only in archaeology but also in other parts of both the research world and society. DarkLab already has several interesting and sometimes surprising collaborations.
- One would think that the interaction area of archaeologists is quite small, but this is not the case, says Nicolò Dell'Unto, director of LU Darklab. We have developed archaeological research methods based on laser technology and AI systems, which are also of great benefit to others, for example in the forestry industry. We have also looked extensively at how we can make our data available to others so that our 3D libraries can be used by, for example, museums, artists and software developers. We are also working with the police by defining technologies and methods that can be used to recreate the environment so that it can actually be examined in retrospect.
Ola Wallberg, is a professor of chemical engineering and involved in the development of the start-up Biotech Heights.
- A few weeks ago, Biotech Heights, which is a collaboration between Tetra Pak and Lund University, was launched to bring in as many companies as possible to create an in innovation hub focused on scaling biotechnology and food processes. We already have existing collaborations with many companies, but through Biotech Heights we want to offer an even better access to our infrastructures. Biotech Heights will be a way in and out of university and through this new surface we will be better at providing great service to researchers and industry.
NanoLund has equipment for micro- and nanofabrication. Examples of what can be done here are semiconductor components of the future for renewable energy sources, power electronics and energy-efficient computers. At NanoLund there are academic users, students who come and learn the equipment but also small and large companies who come to the lab to create new structures. Anders Mikkelsen, Director of NanoLund at Lund University, spoke about how important the ecosystem in Lund is for Lund NanoLab.
- We are currently building a new nanolab near MAX IV and ESS in Science Village to be on site there. For industry and investment partners, it is important that they can see a grouping of infrastructures that have close collaborations. That way, they can pick a whole line of activities and put them together. We want to create a hub with an offer that makes companies from outside want to come to Lund. It is important that we in Lund can profile ourselves in a way so that the rest of the world can understand what we are good at. I hope that working with the Lund Innovation District can help us define the big umbrella issues so that we can show others why it is good to come to Lund and work with us.
The five infrastructures represent deep specialisation — at the same time it was often emphasised how important it is to create more cross-cutting collaborations. The combination possibilities for this are many, for example, that what is developed at the nanolab needs to interact with humans at some stage, and there the special knowledge of the Humanist Laboratory can be an opportunity. Another interesting point of view was that in an innovation process it is important to think more about when bringing in users to test, for example, software — because there can be completely different results if you start with the user's needs than if you bring the user in at the final stage to test an almost finished product.
During the panel discussion, many thoughtful views and ideas were put forward that will be taken into account in the ongoing work with the Lund Innovation District. In 2024, work will continue with more events and working groups.
EU Days Lund 2023 was organized by Lund Municipality, Lund University, the European Commission Representation in Sweden and Europa Direkt Lund in cooperation with several co-organizers.
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