About SPARK Denmark

Woman i a lab

Danish life science ecosystem

Denmark has one of the leading Life Science ecosystems in Europe, with several large Danish and international companies, a vibrant start-up community, investors and venture capitalists with appetites for Life Science investments, many university hospitals with high research output as well as world-leading universities.

The focus on health-related research is substantial at the five largest universities in Denmark – UCPH, AU, SDU, DTU, and AAU – with an estimated 8,000+ researchers. Every year around 10,000 high-quality peer-reviewed Life Science research papers are generated from Danish universities, many of these with high international impact. Denmark is also at the forefront when it comes to biotech-related patents, with 256 patents/1 million per capita in 2021.

The translational challenge

Despite the overall performance, only a small proportion of the research outputs is translated into solutions that benefit patients and society.

For academic researchers with innovative ideas, the road toward a commercial solution is complex, time-consuming, and expensive. Most often, academic researchers have no prior experience translating science into business, and early-stage academic innovation projects are often at risk of being less prioritized than publication writing, lab work, and teaching. Furthermore, the innovation infrastructure at the universities is often not sufficiently prepared to discuss the scientific/developmental requirements to advance the project commercially.

The SPARK Denmark Programme

SPARK Denmark was founded in 2022 inspired by the positive experiences from the SPARK programme in Stanford – as well as many other places in the world. SPARK Denmark was established in a collaboration between five large Danish universities and has been made possible by a generous grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

SPARK Denmark is a mentoring programme that supports early-stage academic inventions and focuses on the following main activities:

  • Funding with up to 700,000 DKK (350,000 DKK per year) for activities like proof-of-concept studies, consultants, prototyping, etc.
  • Enrolment into the SPARK Denmark community with access to the SPARK mentor network of life science industry experts.
  • Monthly educational sessions covering topics of relevance for translating research into business.
  • Monthly meetings for SPARK projects to discuss challenges with SPARK mentors, other SPARK project team members and representatives from the SPARK Management team.
  • Annual meetings and summits, including the SPARK Denmark and the SPARK Nordic summits.

The SPARK programme in Denmark aims to bridge some of the obvious barriers for academic researchers to unfold the commercial potential of research projects and contribute significantly to increased translation of Life Science research within therapeutics, diagnostics, health tech, MedTech, and industrial biotech.