PORTUSPARK

Science and Technology
Parks and Incubators
in Northern Portugal

PortusPark

The Associação do Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia do Porto (Porto Science and Technology Park Association - APCTP), known today as PortusPark.

The PortusPark Network of Science and Technology Parks and Incubators in Northern Portugal is a non-profit organisation with the status of Public Utility Institution. Consisting of public and private capital, it has been in existence for more than 30 years and came about as the result of the shared desire of a significant set of entities to support competitiveness and innovation. Consequently, the APCTP was founded on 29 April 1991.

 

Today, PortusPark is a reality and its strength is evidenced not only by the infrastructure created but, fundamentally: by the current network consisting of eight Science and Technology Parks and three Incubators; by the number of technology-based companies that have already been formed and are members of the network; by the turnover, number of jobs created and volume of exports; by the profiles of the companies’ senior management and employees; and by the connection fostered between universities and companies and the corresponding processes of technology transfer.

President’s Message

It is an undeniable fact that, today, the challenges for a new paradigm in competitiveness require greater academic, scientific and technological capacity from the country’s human resources, as well as the need to boost the competitiveness of our education, vocational training and lifelong learning systems. Another requirement is the capacity to develop a new business culture based on innovation, competence and entrepreneurship, as well as a streamlined, agile and flexible public administration, where the spirit of mission and service are once again in evidence. The future lies with the regions that understand the decisive importance of positioning their productive structure at the cutting edge of knowledge.

Today, the competitiveness of countries and regions is based on the quality and speed of information, on knowledge and on the competence of their human resources. This is why the decisive factors for competitiveness are now innovation, technological development, strategic capacity and the organisation of people and companies. To this end, a network of STPs is an essential component in the organisation of RD&I, promoting synergies that open the way for investments to grow. Consequently, implementing a set of infrastructures, functionalities and services is an important step in the effort to provide a response to a wide range of problems. The preponderance of the concept of logical space over that of physical space comes from the need to provide the STPs with the necessary functional operability to respond to the factors which limit companies’ competitiveness in the context of Portugal’s Norte region, especially SMEs, aiming, in particular:

  • To guarantee the constitution of a support instrument for the development and modernisation of the business fabric in the north of Portugal, fostering the liaison between that fabric, the technology infrastructures and the Portuguese higher education and R&D system;
  • To enable good practices to become widespread in the productive fabric and the higher education apparatus, in order to stimulate business functions and the creation of robust and decentralised companies capable of competing on the global market.

The creation of a Network of Science and Technology Parks in the Porto and Norte Region of Portugal, including business incubators, has finally been achieved - successfully - largely thanks to the work done by PortusPark over the last 15 years. Over this period, we were able to create and envision the development of a network, for which the entire PortusPark team is justly proud.

To all those who have helped us, our sincerest thanks.

Vision

Promote Portugal’s Norte region as a space of excellence and quality of life with a focus on knowledge, technology and innovation, helping the institutions that belong to the network’s ecosystem to achieve their goal of earning recognition as an international benchmark in entrepreneurship and innovation.

Mission

Promote the creation of a Network of Science and Technology Parks in the north of Portugal, propitious to the establishment of technology-based companies, from project incubation through to development at business scale, and involving universities and other centres of knowledge and research, development and innovation institutes.

Monitor, liaise and promote the activity of the science and technology parks and incubators operating within its sphere of action, providing opportunities to enhance the value of the business initiatives based in them, thereby decisively influencing the ongoing enhancement of northern Portugal’s production system.

Goals

Portugal’s Norte region offers a number of attributes that make it a space which is genuinely worth investing and believing in, not for sentimental reasons but, rather, for very rational ones.

Northern Portugal’s population is growing fast, is the youngest in the country and offers highly-qualified human resources. The logistics are good on a number of levels, with a range of infrastructure to support development, while the environmental heritage is unrivalled and the various cultural and sports facilities on offer are capable of affording an appreciable quality of life.

Strategic goals for the Norte Region

  • Promote and manage the transfer of knowledge between the universities, R&D institutions, companies and the market
  • Promote a culture of RD&I in the business world, especially in SMEs, in cooperation with the universities and polytechnics
  • Attract large companies’ research centres
  • Create essential conditions to develop the need, in companies and other institutions, to seek qualified human resources due to the nature of their businesses, creating qualified employment (adjusted in line with the qualifications of the existing human resources)
  • Support entrepreneurs in setting up new businesses and in growing them
  • Promote the Norte Region as a desirable locale for investment that focuses on innovation and knowledge as preferential criteria in its activities and projects
  • Nurture a sustainable development model based on knowledge, technology and innovation grounded in technology-based companies with highly-qualified senior management and which offer the global market stand-out value-added products and services

Services

At this time, PortusPark’s services and areas of activity can essentially be divided into two strands:

  1. Its infrastructure mission which, in fact, were at the heart of PortusPark’s very origin, and which includes all of the preliminary activities, initiatives and tasks that were required in order to set up each of the Network’s Science and Technology Parks and/or Incubators, and more specifically:
  • Setting up the partnerships between the members of each Science and Technology Park (STP), i.e. higher education establishments, municipal councils, business associations, companies, etc.
  • Development of the STP’s business plans
  • Development of the investment plans
  • Management of the European funding operations
  • Launching of tenders
  • Supervision of the construction of the buildings in the first phase
  • Involvement in the creation of the management bodies and respective organisational and governance models
  • Construction and management of buildings belonging to PortusPark, geared towards the installation of benchmark/anchor companies or research centres for the Network’s STPs.
  1. Support and leverage of the infrastructure mission since, due to its strategic positioning, PortusPark detected a series of services that it could deliver on two distinct levels:

Services related to the STPs and Incubators

  • Information and communication services
  • Statistical services and studies
  • Sharing of good practices
  • Attracting new companies
  • Networking events
  • Connection to the world’s largest STP network (IASP - International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation)

Services related to the companies working out of the Network’s STPs and Incubators

With regard to the companies operating out of the Network’s STPs and Incubators, and through specific programmes for the purpose, PortusPark is able to support and occasionally provide certain technological entrepreneurship services that leverage the business of some companies in the Network, namely through:

  • Information and communication services
  • Statistical services and studies
  • Networking events
  • Support programmes for project incubation and acceleration/start-ups
  • Training programmes for projects/start-ups
  • Support programmes for the internationalisation of projects/start-ups
  • Soft landing services
  • Facilitated access to the PortusPark Network’s business ecosystem
  • Facilitated access to science and technology systems
  • Connection to the world’s largest STP network (IASP - International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation)