For the region between Sweden and Denmark, which has been connected by the ‘Øresund Bridge‘ since 2000, these are extraordinary numbers: eight years after its opening, the region was already home to a consortium of twelve universities (Øresund University), six science and technology parks, more than two thousand companies and five business platforms in the fields of AI and ICT, logistics, food, environment, medicine and biotechnology, neuroscience and biochemistry. Multinationals such as Sony Ericsson, Astra Zeneca, Tetra Pak, Novo Nordisk and numerous highly innovative SMEs have found Øresund an ideal habitat. In 2009, the area where the ferries between Malmø and Copenhagen dock won the award as Europe’s most innovative region. Medicon Valley employs 40.000 people and 10.000 researchers from more than 300 companies; the large particle physics project called Ess (European Spallation Source), operational from 2020, has created 6.000 new top-level jobs. The universities represent an inexhaustible reservoir for the world’s most famous scientific institutes: everything was born in the shadow of the bridge.
