Broad demand for an inspiring location where universities and the private sector can collaborate
In summer 2017, Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich will open its doors at the airfield in Dübendorf. The park will create a new platform for research, development and innovation, with the aim of combining research findings with the practical experience and market expertise of leading big companies, SMEs and start-ups. The first few projects to be located in the park come from the areas of robotics and mobility, space, and financial and blockchain technology.
Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich is intended to be a site that brings companies together and enables them to tap into various sources of potential along their supply chains. The objective is to reduce the time it takes to turn research findings into marketable products and services. Physical proximity, open-plan offices, workshops, laboratories and shared testing facilities and information platforms will create the ideal conditions to inspire companies to exchange ideas and share their expertise. The innovation park will stimulate growth, create new jobs and improve Zurich’s already considerable appeal as a location and the high quality of life in the region.
Demand-oriented, step-by-step construction and expansion
The first signs of the innovation park will be visible from summer 2017 when a pavilion is erected on the airfield at what will eventually be the entrance to the park. The pavilion will house an exhibition, a cafe open to the public – which will be the very first central meeting point at the park – and the offices of the park operator, Stiftung Innovationspark Zürich. Planning for the first new constructions (on the building plots in front of the hangars) will commence in 2020. The spaces are intended to be flexible in terms of how they are used, with research laboratories, workshops, testing areas and pilot plants, as well as offices and meeting rooms.
The first projects in the areas of robotics and mobility, space travel and financial technology
The companies and institutions using the site will determine where the park chooses to focus its efforts. Life sciences and quality of life, engineering and environment and digital technologies and communication all provide potential topics: they reflect current megatrends and are based on the combined expertise of the universities and universities of applied sciences, as well as the cluster initiatives of the Division of Business and Economic Development of the Canton of Zurich.
The first projects to be located in the park come from the areas of robotics and mobility, space and financial technology. The Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) aims to set up a robotics and mobility hub to encourage collaboration between academic researchers, companies and start-ups in an area that is important to both Zurich and Switzerland. The park’s infrastructure and conditions are also ideally suited to the University of Zurich’s space travel initiative, which includes a number of innovation projects. Finally, plans are also in place to bring all the activities in the area of blockchain technology together and develop them under a single umbrella term, Trust Square. In the medium term, discussions are underway about developing a center for advanced manufacturing to expand Empa’s current Coating Competence Center.