Monetising the social value of STPs/AOIs

Researchers from three European universities recently presented their initial findings of the social value generated by selected STPs and AOIs, in a project carried out in collaboration with IASP.

This innovative project with DEUSTO Business School (Spain), the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) and Università degli Studi dell’Insubria (Italy), in collaboration with IASP, offers an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the monetary value generated by the science park community, and of the total contribution that each STP/AOI generates locally, regionally and worldwide.

The research team - Professor Ricardo Aguado Muñoz, Professor Alfredo Biffi and Victor Blazquez - are developing a tool that other organisations will be able to use to measure their social value. As well as quantifying the monetary value, communicating this social value can generate important benefits for STPs/AOIs: creating a sense of community that brings prosperity to residents and to the region, clarifying the economic and social connections between STP/AOI companies and stakeholders, and communicating to society the social and economic contribution of the STP to the wellbeing of the region.

The methodology and findings were presented to the 14 participating members from 6 countries – ComoNExT, OpenZone and Kilometro Rosso (Italy); Madan Parque de Ciencia and TECMAIA Parque de Ciencia e Tecnologia de Maia (Portugal); Ciudad Politécnica de la Innovación (Valencia), UC3M Science Park, Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Bizkaia, Parque Cientifico y Tecnólogico de Tenerife, Parque Científico Tecnológico de Gijón, and Parque Tecnolóxico de Galicia (Spain); Linköping Science Park (Sweden), NOVI (Denmark), and the University of Warwick Science Park (UK) – who had shared extensive data about their resident companies and organisations directly located in their STP/AOI or who they otherwise consider part of their community.

In the pilot study, researchers analysed 799 companies from the 14 participating parks, who employ over 26,500 workers, and estimated the total social value generated to be around €12 billion. This means an average social value per company of nearly €15 million, almost €350k per person.

Designed to minimise the invasiveness of primary data collection from individual organisations and develop analytical criteria that can be standardised, generalised and adapted to specific national and regional contexts, the methodology and results obtained were first presented to each park independently, to discuss and validate the findings. This month’s online meeting gave them the opportunity to look at overall findings and compare results with peers working in different countries and different regional contexts.