An overview of science citiesCities Committed to Scientific Pursuit

9 January 2024, by Claudia Sewig

Photo: WISTA.Plan GmbH/Dirk Laubner

Adlershof and its imposing monument: The 20-meter tall Trudelturm is a technical monument to aviation research built in the years 1934-1936. It stands next to another listed monument, the roughly 130-meter wind channel from the same period.

Photo: Entrepreneurial University Munich

An aerial view shows the research reactor in Munich, the so-called “atomic egg,” and its successor, the research neutron source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM Ii—directly connected to the egg) on the Garching campus near Munich.

Learning Center Lumen der Université Paris-Saclay

Photo: Fernando & Sergio Guerra

The Learning Center Lumen at the Université Paris-Saclay (designed by the architects Emmanuelle and Laurent Beaudouin) was completed in September 2023.

The Maersk Tower in Copenhagen Science City

Photo: Mikal Schlosser

The 75-meter high Maersk Tower is one of Copenhagen Science City’s landmark monuments. It belongs to the the University of Copenhagen’s faculty of health and medicine.

Photo: Cobe

The Science Center proposal for Lund involves a building of wood. The work is set to begin in March 2024 and the opening is planned for May 2026.

In January 2019, Hamburg’s senate, the district of Altona, Universität Hamburg, and DESY introduced the urban development plans for their 2024 vision of Science City Hamburg-Bahrenfeld. Since then, an entire neighborhood dedicated to scientific pursuit has been growing in the west of Hamburg. Other cities have something similar.

Oxford, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Lund, and Copenhagen— all of these cities have neighborhoods specifically planned around the interplay between research and society at large, where scientific institutions, start-ups, innovative companies, and space to conduct research, work, and live have been emerging. Science city, science park, science village, innovation park, science and technology park, research campus— there is no single term or uniform concept.

Below, we introduce a few places and their areas of focus.

Berlin

Where

Adlershof—Science at Work That is the slogan for “Germany’s largest and most successful science and technology park as well as Berlin’s largest media location.” This is how Adlershof, in the southeast of the German capital, describes itself. In March 1991, Berlin’s senate resolved to establish an “integrated landscape for scientific pursuit and business” on the former motor-plane airfield, Germany’s first, in the Treptow-Köpenick district.

Who

There are now 1,270 companies covering 4.6 square km, including 17 scientific institutions employing 28,000 people. There are also roughly 6,600 students and 950 apprentices. At the end of 2022, about 6,000 people lived in the still-developing section of Adlershof. More apartments will follow in the upcoming years.

What

The core area is home to Adlershof’s companies and non-university research institutes in the fields of photonics and optics, photovoltaics and renewable energies, microsystems and materials, informatics and media, and biotechnology and environment. In 1997, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) resolved to move their mathematics and natural sciences faculties to Adlershof. In 2003, the move was completed. Since then, the HU has 6 institutes there: informatics, mathematics, chemistry, physics, geography, and psychology.

Lund

Where

The most recent among the science cities presented here is the scientific center currently emerging in Lund, the southernmost region of Sweden. Since 2019, Science Village Scandinavia AB has been working on ideas for their buildings. When construction is completed, the area will cover over 450,000 square footage for academic work, labs, and commercial purposes. Lund University is planning to dramatically expand its campus and build a new nano-lab in Science Village. Lund University, which has 45,000 students, already has experience with mixed research and commercial landscapes thanks to Ideon Science Park, which opened in 2011.

Who

The board of Lund University, which has a strong strategic partnership with Universität Hamburg, decided in 2018 that its university should establish a larger presence in Science Village. Their engineering and natural sciences faculties are overseeing the process for the university. The area is designed to attract students, researchers, staff, conference guests, and anyone who is curious. To this end, there will also be a public Science Center, a concert hall, and extensive conference room facilities.

What

In the new Science Village, 2 of the world’s leading research centers for materials research and the biosciences—the MAX IV Laboratory and the European Spallation Source (ESS), the strongest neutron source in the world—should be up and running by the end of 2027. Construction on the Lund Science Center is set to begin in March 2024, with the opening scheduled for May 2026. Planning and execution of the public Science Center in Science Village will be handled jointly by the owners, Lund University, the Skåne region, and the City of Lund. The Science Village Hall (opening in 2024) is a conference and entertainment venue for 1,000 people. The Science Village Hall will be housed in one of 2 planned, imposing buildings in the heart of Science Village, “the loop,” where renters will begin to move in in 2024.

Munich

Where

The research campus Garching is located in the north of Munich and is one of the largest centers for scientific pursuit, research, and teaching in Germany. The university and research center is a neighborhood in the City of Garching.

Who

Roughly 20,000 students and more than 7,500 staff are currently active on the Garching research campus. The “atomic egg” is the campus’ famous symbol. Germany’s first nuclear facility, it was established in 1957 as part of President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program. It was used solely as a neutron source for research purposes and to train young physicists. It was the cradle of neutron research in Germany. The research reactor was in operation until 2000. Its successor, the Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II), went into operation in 2004.

What

Garching is home to a concentration of natural science and technical research institutions. It is the largest location for The Entrepreneurial University of Munich (TUM), the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the Max Planck Institute, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the European Southern Observatory, and numerous other prestigious institutions and corporations.

Oxford

Where

Even the name has the whiff of science and scholarship: Oxford. The city on the Thames, 90 km northwest of London, is the seat of the old, renowned University of Oxford. So it is hardly a riddle as to why there are 2 entire areas here that bear the term “science” in their names: The Oxford University Science Area in the city’s center, where most of Oxford University’s faculties are housed, and the Oxford Science Park on the southern city border.

Who

The majority of the Oxford Science Park is owned by Magdalen College of Oxford, one of its oldest colleges, and it has a strategic partnership with a subsidiary of the global investor GIC. From the founding of Oxford’s spin-offs through growth ventures focusing on metabolic diseases and medical technology companies and important players in the fight against the pandemic, there is a broad scientific spectrum. There are, however, companies in completely different industries, for example TripAdvisor. The over 100 corporations appreciate their proximity to the University of Oxford.

What

The developmental plan for the Oxford Science Park envisions new, cutting-edge institutions for R&D by 2025 across an area of 625,000 square meters. It also includes a train station.

Paris

Where

Paris-Saclay stands, on the one hand, for Université Paris-Saclay in the south of the French capital; on the other, for the technology and science park Paris-Saclay, of which the university is a part. Both are large associations of scientific institutions in their own right.

Who

Université Paris-Saclay emerged from an association of French universities, the Grandes Écoles, and national research institutions. It covers the natural and engineering sciences, the biosciences and health, as well as the humanities and social sciences. Its goal is to closely link research to innovation.

What

Since 2008, this should expand exponentially on the plateau of Saclay covering around 20 km southwest of Paris. Inspired by the success of Silicon Valley, the scientific and technology project currently under construction should encompass science, business, and regional planning. In the area, which measures 7 km in length and 1 km in breadth, there are already 60 commercial areas with 71,000 companies and 428,000 jobs in health, energy, mobility of the future, digital technologies, air and space travel, cyber security, defense, food technology, and other areas. The 65,000 students and 826,000 residents do not only have 19 universities and national research centers, 360 research labs, and 9 Grandes Ecoles at this disposal but also, for example, 38 theaters and 2 opera houses.

Copenhagen

Where

Like Science City Hamburg-Bahrenfeld, the Copenhagen Science City is located in the center of Denmark’s capital. Copenhagen’s Science City is grouped around 3 institutions for education, research, and applied science: the University College Copenhagen, the University Hospital of Copenhagen, and the faculties of natural sciences and of health and medicine at Copenhagen University.

Who

Copenhagen Science City is a partnership between the City of Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital region, the University College of Copenhagen, Copenhagen University, the Rigshospitalet (university medical clinic in Copenhagen), the Danish building and property ministry, Copenhagen’s Bio Science Park, and the Symbion and Novo Nordisk partnership.

What

The university, the hospital, and University College are currently investing more than €1 billion into new buildings for nursing care, education, and research. There are already 40,000 researchers, students, and staff working here, as well as 500 companies, 6 start-up associations, and 8 innovation, incubation, and acceleration programs sharing 200,000 square meters of office space.

Science City Hamburg-Bahrenfeld

Located directly at the Volkspark in Altona, Science City Hamburg-Bahrenfeld is growing in Hamburg’s western suburbs on 125 acres. There is already a research campus in addition to many renowned Universität Hamburg institutions such as DESY, the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser GmbH, the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Moreover, 2 of our 4 Universität Hamburg clusters of excellence are located there: CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter and Quantum Universe.

And the area continues to grow: By 2040, lively residential areas, sports and leisure facilities, and shopping opportunities will supplement research, training, and businesses. The A7 expressway will be covered and Hamburg’s racing track will be moved, facilitating the construction of 3,000 new apartments and 2 schools.

Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld GmbH is responsible for the development of the premises. It has a center that offers, in addition to information for visitors, guided tours around the area. See the Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld GmbH homepage for more information and current developments.

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