The story behind KSP

How Kalmar Science Park came about

2003- Kalmar Science Park AB was established as a merger of Atrium 21 and Soft Center, both with business operations since mid-to-late 1990’s. During this time, the Business department at Högskolan i Kalmar (now the Linnaeus University) was always an active stakeholder.

2004 – Kalmar Science Park starts its business incubator activities, which today has become the Incubator.

2006 – Kalmar Science Park becomes a part of the Kalmar Kommunbolag AB Group, as one of ten subsidiaries. This has provided Kalmar Municipality the opportunity to work in a much more focused way with innovation and growth issues in knowledge-based companies.

2007 – Kalmar Science Park’s Incubator starts its operations, following the merge of Högskolan i Kalmar’s “Inkubator Start” and what was then the business incubator activities within Kalmar Science Park.

2009 – Kalmar Science Park Member and Kalmar Science Park Partner are established as new business units

2011 – Kalmar Science Park hosts the first Swedish Innovation Summit organised by the industry association Swedish Incubators & Science Parks – SISP. The year also saw the owners, Kalmar Municipality, doubling their monetary contribution to the operations for a three-year period, after which a review would be performed.

2012 – Kalmar Science Park achieves ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 accreditations relating to quality assurance and environmental work. The cluster Kalmar Science Park e-Commerce is also established during the year.

2016 – business unit Kalmar Science Park Member is re-established as Associate and the e-Commerce cluster becomes Digital Business.

2017 – Kalmar Science Park is awarded Excellence Incubator by Vinnova and thus becomes one of the highest ranked business incubators in Sweden.