An important research concerning the development of business incubators in the Baltic Sea region has been carried out

An important research concerning the development of business incubators in the Baltic Sea region has been carried out

Business incubators in different countries of Baltic Sea region, including Latvia, faces similar problems in their development – insecurity about long term financing, lack of unified criterions for measuring results of company work within incubators, selection of innovative ideas and limited choice of services. Those are conclusions from research made within the framework of intercountry business incubator Project IBI NET.

In the research made by Teknikdalen Foundation from Sweden participated 15 business incubators from 6 countries – Latvia, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Germany and Belarus. Even though in all these countries has been different development and history of Business incubators which are hard to compare, all participants of the research faces similar problems in today’s development of business incubators.

IBI Net Project manager Inga Brieze: „This research is very important for Latvia, because it allows to get acquainted with experience of other Baltic Sea region countries in development of business incubators and make conclusions what could be done to improve situation in level of country and business incubators, to offer wider opportunities and more qualitative services for enterprises within incubators.”

One of the main challenges of the business incubators in these countries is the sources of the funding in long term. In the majority of the countries stable investment is assured for a set period of time only, which results of additional services not being developed. Only few business incubators have a solid long term government funding.

The developers of the business incubators in these countries are both the central and local governments as well as the private sector. Overall the business incubators offer basic needs of start-up businesses like office space and basic services of an accountant or a lawyer. Only a handful of people work in these incubators attracting outside human resources and services when needed. Only a minor fraction of business incubators have specialized in one specific field. Usually it is influenced by the specialization of a nearby establishment, e.g. a university, or the specialization of the local region.

Rarely a business incubator will offer services that target the expansion of the business into an international environment. Also the monitoring and so called soft-landing services are not particularly sought after. Also, specific and unified methods of measuring the success of the business during its ‘incubation’ and after are not established and hence the experience is hard to be applied in-between the different businesses.

The authors of this research suggest that the business incubators should pay more attention to offering additional services, monitor the success of the businesses more closely as well as help to establish the businesses on the international level, which would allow them to share their experience and develop services aimed at encouraging export.

Interestingly, the oldest business within framework of the research incubator is in operation for only 15 years.

IBI NET is a Baltic Sea Region Project, which aims to establish and strengthen the transnational business incubator network in the Baltic Sea Region. Riga Planning Region is the Lead Partner of the Project. It is implemented in close cooperation with  Riga Technical University (Latvia), Teknikdalen Foundation (Sweden), Municipality of Elblag City (Poland), Technology Centre of Western Pomerania (Germany), State Enterprise "Scientific - Technological Park BNTU "Polytechnic" (Belarus) and Innovation Centre in Hedmark (Norway).

IBI NET project is being implemented from December 2009 until June 2012.  For more information: www.ibi-net.eu

Contacts:

Inga Brieze, IBI Net Project manager

Riga Planning Region

e-mail: inga.brieze@rpr.gov.lv

Phone: +371 67559823
Fax: +371 67226431
Zigfrīda Annas Meierovica boulevard 18,
Riga, LV 1050
www.rpr.gov.lv

För mer information om Stiftelsen Teknikdalen, kontakta VD Sture Ericsson, tel 070-826 28 77.