The raise of Remote Work – is the importance of STPs & AOIs overestimated today?

WISTA Managing Director Roland Sillmann at the annual conference of the IASP - International Association of Science Parks in Nairobi

[Translate to English:] WISTA-Geschäftsführer Roland Sillmann präsentierte auf der "40th IASP World Conference, Kenia 2024"

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

From running one of Europe's leading STPs, we know that physical proximity fosters entrepreneurship and innovation and transfers scientific knowledge into products that help tackle the grand challenges. However, in the aftermath of the pandemic, remote working is part of everyday life, with people and companies preferring to do most of their work from home via the internet. So as a site, we have to ask ourselves: is the importance of STPs & AOIs overestimated today? At the same time, we are seeing a serious decline in innovative ideas. This fact led us to the decision that proximity is still important, but that we as STPs and AOIs must change what we offer to bring people together again. Therefore, as the managers of Germany's largest AOI, we will explain in this paper how we have expanded our services and designed a new working environment to respond to this trend.
 

The raise of Remote Work

The world is facing grand challenges such as climate change or dwindling resources. These problems have a negative global impact and can only be solved through innovation generated by many smart people - with different backgrounds like level of education, origin, profession, perspectives, opinions, age, and so on. As WISTA we manage Adlershof – one of Europe's leading STPs – and we believe that innovative solutions that have a positive impact are based on research and technology. These solutions, which will create future economies, we do not and cannot know yet. But that's not our job as an STP or AOI. STPs and AOIs in general, and we as Germany's largest AOI in particular, have a different, clear, and at the same time complex task: to build a “people climate” that could attract the diverse human talents that drive true innovation and prosperity to support the creative process which is a necessity to tackle the global grand challenges.

Part of the job is therefore to anticipate trends and barriers to the success of people and companies. Knowing that STPs and AOIs foster entrepreneurship and innovation through physical proximity, one such diagnosed barrier is that the use of locations such as STPs and AOIs has declined, especially over the last four years. We all know the reason for this: the pandemic-induced remote work. But also in general, working from home has increased rapidly in the last decade. This trend has been driven by technological developments that allow people to work from anywhere with an Internet connection. In addition, we all know that the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated the shift to mobile working, with many companies introducing mobile working policies to protect their employees and maintain operational capability, including in AOI and STPs.

In parallel, employees are expressing an increasing desire for flexibility in the workplace and in working hours, in order to balance family and career. Furthermore, the elimination of commuting and the potential savings in office space costs for employers are reinforcing this shift.

So, we as AOIs and STPs have to ask ourselves how we should react to this change that has already taken place. Or is it simply a reasonable and sensible development and the importance of AOI and STPs is overestimated today?

As the most successful STP in Germany, we carry out a study every year. Based on the data, we have a clear opinion: STPs and AOIs are important because working from home has serious negative consequences not only for individuals but also for companies, clusters, industries, and entire (future) economies. For example, for employees, the difficulty of separating leisure time from work, or conversely, social isolation, an unproductive work environment, and a lack of or unhealthy work equipment can lead to serious physical problems¹ and mental stress², researchers found out.

For companies as well, remote work has its dark side and will leave its mark on the employer in the long run. For example, more difficult communication or a complete lack of cooperation can increase staff turnover and sickness rates. As informal exchanges are made more difficult, the lack of face-to-face interaction and verbal as well as non-verbal communication restricts innovation processes. But especially for social and sustainable entrepreneurship, generating new ideas to tackle global grand challenges is important. The dataset of our STP already shows this alarming process.

Therefore, too much remote work is a serious issue for all STPs as it is a clear barrier to innovation and success. And even more, a rise of remote work is questioning the fundamental necessity of STPs. But how can an AOI like our large, asset-heavy STP in Berlin remain resilient and respond to such a global trend? 

In an intense process, we decided to broaden our service by adding a different kind of business support to our portfolio in order to remain attractive to the smartest people and companies in the country and beyond. So we developed a new working environment to help people prefer the STP office to remote work. To do this, we needed to offer working conditions that were better than working from home. So much better, in fact, that they would overlook the commute and other hurdles of going to an office. With this in mind, we decided to use a completely new real estate to create an innovative working environment that has the look and feel of a well-designed hotel. We offer spaces with community management services that allow people and companies to rent workspace on a flexible basis - from a single desk to whole rooms by the day, weekday, week, or month. 

Because our decision to create this new service was also research-based, we knew the importance of focusing on people's needs and requirements to bring them together at the STPs and AOIs. We always had to consider that needs and requirements vary within and between people when creating this new working environment. Therefore, the new service and also the interior design of the center is dedicated to satisfying different needs and is therefore divided into five different zones:

1. focused work area

As focused working can create a sense of flow and unleash creativity, the desks are located in small to medium-sized office units, rather than open-plan offices as in co-working environments or large companies. The emphasis in the focused work zones is on a calm, feel-good atmosphere that encourages concentration. A large number of telephone booths and meeting boxes complement this area to reduce disturbance and distraction and also to facilitate effective meetings. Plants, natural colors, and high-quality materials are part of the design concept.

2. exchange and collaboration area

As collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurship are linked to trust and spending time with different people, it is also important to meet someone from another cluster or profession, a behavior that has suffered greatly during the pandemic and to which people are now accustomed. This is why workspaces are offered and used by all kinds of smart people, such as founders, employees, and researchers from the higher education institutions already located in our STP. Our new service promotes entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer by offering dedicated areas such as kitchens and lounges, swings, and coffee corners for a comfortable atmosphere and services that invite people to interact and stimulate creative and innovative processes. Smart design that supports privacy while creating a sense of belonging and community is critical to building trust to collaborate or start a business.

3. detachment and relaxation area

Providing good working conditions and community management also means focusing on health aspects. Ergonomically designed and adjustable chairs and height-adjustable desks are just the beginning, but focusing on mental health is more important now than ever. Preventing burnout and other serious mental health problems is key, so our services for innovative entrepreneurs, researchers, and employees must take this into account. In all the different areas, the design has incorporated features that meet the psychological criteria for recharging from work. One example is a "mind spa". This is a small space in the room where a quiet and peaceful atmosphere with light, sound, and fragrances helps overwhelmed people to detach themselves from the surrounding space, people, and work. Telephone booths, small cabins located in each area, are also used to facilitate rapid mental regeneration and find relaxation and regeneration.

4. inspiration and prototyping area

As it is important for STPS / AOI to remain attractive to people interested in technology, one way is to offer prototyping areas with state-of-the-art technology for young companies. This is why we have decided to integrate a VR/AR studio and 3D printers for piloting and inspiration to drive digitalization. In addition, this digital part of the maker space is accompanied by the necessary machines to work with materials such as metal, wood, polymers, etc. This prototyping area is also administered by our community management team and is also used to get children and young people excited about technology and new ways of working and innovating.

5. (Further) education

Bringing diverse people together and supporting networks is important for STPs. Looking at the demands and needs of the people, we also decided to establish or own an academy - the WISTA Academy - to offer professional training to the many people in our STP. We have also integrated this facility into the building to meet a wide range of educational needs, as it fits into the new working environment. As diversity in all its different meanings is important for solving the grand challenges, education across the lifespan and tolerance are also important topics. Several rooms in the education area are dedicated to masterclasses, used by trainers to help people and businesses thrive.

By bringing these five different areas together with the concept of focusing on people's needs, we are pioneering the application of scientific findings from psychology and innovation research in this new business model of ours. To understand the benefits and drawbacks, we have launched a research project with the Department of Occupational Health Psychology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which will evaluate the concept, by providing new insights and suggestions for improvement. But despite some small changes that we will probably have to make, we are more than convinced that STPs and AOIs need to help people come to innovative places and infrastructures that provide them with a technology-driven and thriving atmosphere. With the awareness that Europe must go to extreme lengths to assert itself against anti-migrant and centralist currents, it is also a task of a Science and Technology Parks and an Areas of Innovation to create and maintain an environment where people are tolerant and open-minded. This is a significant responsibility that we, as STP and AoI, must be aware of.

From this point of view, it's not just that diversity is a moral imperative, which of course it is. As many founders and their teams have a migration background and open markets and democratic ideas that go beyond national interests are the basis of Europe - tolerance and diversity are also an economic necessity.

So, this is our approach, and we are happy to share our experiences, address the question of whether this can serve as a blueprint, and exchange ideas about other possible ways forward.

Content also on LinkedIn.