New university building is crucial to innovation district ambitions
The Niels Bohr Building at Innovation District Copenhagen-partner University of Copenhagen is 52,000 square metres of state-of-the-art labs, offices and auditoria. It will house the university’s Departments of chemistry and physics and their highly specialised research infrastructure. On 29th October 2024 the building complex was inaugurated by HRH King Frederik X together with the university’s Rector and Chairperson. By Jes Andersen.
Preserving a legacy of excellence
University of Copenhagen has built on the scientific excellence of Bohr and is today ranked as the best university in Scandinavia, number two in the EU and number seven in Europe. With the Niels Bohr Building the Danish Government aims to provide the best possible conditions for staff and students to hold on to that position. According to the university chairperson the building also reinforces the university as a start-up hub.
How can University of Copenhagen be of better use to more people? A central answer is its role in Innovation District Copenhagen, which it is building together with the City of Copenhagen and the Danish Government with inspiration from Kendall Square in Boston”: Merete Eldrup, chair, University of Copenhagen board.
Heart of a thriving innovation eco-system
The new building sits in the exact centre of the innovation district and within walking distance of six start-up communities housing over 500 innovation intensive start-up companies.
Now al we need to do, is to transform the entire innovation district, from Panum to Blegdamsvej to Haraldsgade (The boundaries of the district. Ed.) into a start-up habitat. We have strong backing from the Government, City of Copenhagen and the Capital Region of Denmark. The latest example being the governments start-up strategy”: Merete Eldrup, chair, University of Copenhagen board.
Built for meetings of minds
A key feature of the building is its transparency. All labs and auditoria are glass-walled and shared “coffee hot spots” are dotted all over the building in a pattern promoting random meetings of minds. According to the university rector, this meeting-inducing architecture is a celebration of Nobel Prize laureate Niels Bohr’s most important contribution to the world.
The atomic model was certainly an important contribution. Transforming Copenhagen into an IQ-magnet for the best physicists in the world, likewise. According to Bohr himself, his main contribution was to get people talking to each other… And talking together is the main philosophy of this building”: Henrik C. Wegener, Rector, University of Copenhagen
Globally useful
With physicists and chemistry researchers housed in the same building there is a chance to start interesting new conversations. One of the inhabitants will be Denmark’s latest Nobel laureate, the chemist Morten Meldal. Niels Bohr is Denmark’s most famous physicist and there are roads named for him in 21 Danish cities. Probably in appreciation of the fact, that research and education in the Niels Bohr-league is useful. Not just for Copenhagen, but for Denmark and the world.
The naming of all these streets is no coincidence. It is a recognition that the deepest research in Copenhagen is of the broadest use throughout the kingdom”: Henrik C. Wegener, Rector, University of Copenhagen
