Stickiness and science parks

This research article focuses on the stickiness of companies (their tendency to stay, or leave) on Dutch science parks, factors which influence this behaviour and possible solutions aimed at increasing the duration of stay of tenants.

Over the last decades, Dutch universities with a technical or life-science background and, more recently, university medical centres have developed their existing campus grounds into science parks. In a similar trend, several former single-tenant business parks, all with strong R&D backgrounds, have transformed into attractive multi-tenant areas of innovation.

Key take-aways:

• The two most important factors in the ability to retain tenants are the size of the science park and the type of science park on which a company is situated. Bigger science parks, as well as corporate, as opposed to university, showed a higher ability to retain companies;
• These factors can be influenced by science park management or other public stakeholders, as well as commercial actors such as real estate investors;
• The relative difference between duration of stay of companies among different types of science parks can be attributed to the business development phase of these companies;
• Commercial real estate development contributes to the critical mass of resources, in terms of facilities and services, and is required to develop the local ecosystem, which in turn retains and attracts tenants