ESADE CREAPOLIS Innovation Park

The ESADE CREAPOLIS Innovation Park has become a reality. In addition to business space, the new Sant Cugat facility features an academic campus that will serve as an extension of ESADE's Barcelona location. This ecosystem, linked up to major knowledge networks, offers an optimal setting for boosting innovation and business performance.

The new academic campus will be home to more than 1200 students and faculty, as well as ESADE's research centres. Synergies between the resident companies and the business school will be managed to ensure that all of the companies are getting the most out of ESADE's potential.

The business area consists of the CREAPOLIS building and a Residence-Club where global innovation experts, students in ESADE's Executive Education programmes, and representatives of other disciplines will be housed and can participate in the activities and services that ESADE CREAPOLIS will provide.

The opening of ESADE CREAPOLIS marks the first time that an innovation park designed by a world-renowned business school has brought together 80 companies from various sectors in a high-performance ecosystem, all with a common objective: accelerating the pace of innovation. ESADE CREAPOLIS is the first international business innovation centre designed specifically for 'open innovation'. At ESADE CREAPOLIS, companies will interact with one another under the concept of 'open and cross innovation': a collaborative effort that mixes the knowledge and experience of different sectors in order to speed up innovation. Space will be limited at this multi-sector park to ensure that the companies in residence optimally represent a wide range of industries. This mix of sectors will strengthen lateral innovation processes under the guidance of our experts, with a clear results orientation, so that participants receive support throughout the innovation process.

Several years of research have indicated that, in order for lateral innovation to be possible, the various participants must coexist in the same space. Occasional collaboration is not enough: it is essential to spend time together in both formal and informal settings. The ESADE CREAPOLIS ecosystem is based on the premise of coexistence as the first exercise in collaboration: we invite companies to coexist comprehensively. A department that explores beyond its walls increases its ability to grasp ideas, concepts and knowledge that will allow it to promote disruptive new products and services with a high degree of potential.

Some clients have decided to move their entire innovation department to ESADE CREAPOLIS. Others are sending a clearly developed 'antenna' of the department to the new site. Still others are setting up a base where a permanent team will host rotating teams from other areas or business units on a sort of 'intellectual holiday', during which team members will enrich and nourish both themselves and their companies with ideas, knowledge and new alliances. The productivity of this sort of multi-sector innovation is exponential, and clearly superior to that which a company could carry out by itself.

For more information on ESADE CREAPOLIS, visit: www.esadecreapolis.com