Aarhus

Aarhus has a well-educated labour force along with R&D environments of high international class, which in conjunction with a well-developed infrastructure and a range of business strengths are contributing to the city being a unique and attractive place for investments. Aarhus is the right place for businesses who want to deliver solutions of the future. The city’s innovation capacity is recognised internationally and the city has been finalist in the European Capital of Innovation Awards for 2017 and 2018.

Our shared vision is to create solutions to global challenges. Aarhus University is at the forefront of creating these solutions along with our innovation hubs within the fields of cleantech, food, healthcare, ICT, design, architecture and fashion.

What really sets Aarhus apart from other European cities is our long tradition of collaboration between companies, research and users. This tradition, combined with an interdisciplinary and user-oriented approach to development, is one of the main factors driving the strong innovation culture in Aarhus.

The city shares a belief in the power of rethinking to make a real difference. For example, through a mix of public solutions, public participation and close cooperation with the business and industry, Aarhus will be completely carbon-neutral by 2030. The goal was set in 2008 and fortunately, the City of Aarhus is already halfway there due to close collaboration and innovation projects. However, in the years to come the city faces a truly difficult task as 90% of the carbon emissions comes from sources outside of the city council’s direct influence. This means that we can only succeed if we rethink the way we cooperate with businesses, NGO’s, universities and our citizens. Aarhus might be a small city in global terms, but our local companies and community provide green solutions with a global perspective.

The city has a rich cultural life and world-class music venues, theatres and museums, including ARoS, Moesgaard Museum and The Old Town. If you are more of an outdoor type, you can also explore the sea, stunning beaches and woodland parks close to the city centre. Activities like running, kayaking and cycling are always right around the corner. In addition to this the city was the European Capital of Culture in 2017.

The city offers a huge variety of diverse shopping opportunities, from exciting department stores to a wide selection of boutiques, markets, cafés and Michelin-starred restaurants.

Economy

Aarhus has a diverse economy, but it is heavily knowledge and service based. Within Aarhus’ compact geographical area, there are strong knowledge and innovation hubs.

These hubs are within food, healthcare, cleantech, ICT and creative industries with a focus on film, fashion, design and architecture. The high concentration of advanced knowledge, innovation hubs and talent give companies the perfect conditions for cutting-edge innovation and development.

The City is home to the headquarters of globally acknowledged companies like Vestas, Arla, Salling Group, Jysk, Per Aarsleff, Terma, Hummel, Lindberg, Systematic, and HMF Group, and has larger offices and development departments from among others Dupont, Google, Uber, IBM, CSC, Bestseller, Arla, Danfoss, and Vestas. The business environment is ranked amongst the best in several international rankings.

Interests & Future Goals

The city of Aarhus has decided to become a carbon neutral city for 2030. In order to achieve this goal, the city has an ambitious Climate Plan and Smart City strategy, which seeks to engage the whole city in the green transition and establish Aarhus as an open innovation environment e.g. in its outdoor City Lab, where smart city solutions are tested and developed. The Smart City development in Aarhus is organized in “Smart Aarhus”. Smart Aarhus proposes a new way of organizing efforts to find effective and sustainable solutions to the challenges faced by many cities today. Through collaboration between the public and the private sector, citizens, the business community, and knowledge institutions, Smart Aarhus offers a platform for everyone, who wants to contribute to the digital development of the city. Smart Aarhus seeks to find joint digital solutions to the city’s most important economic challenges while integrating CO2-neutrality in every aspect of the City’s work.

One of the many projects that Smart Aarhus has already put in place is LED Street Lights. The city wants to replace its streetlights with LED technology. In the long term this saves a lot of energy and helps to make the city more sustainable. Another project that has already been put in place is the Traffic Control Centre. This project seeks to create a more efficient traffic flow, and therefore decrease the amount of pollution in the air. One of Aarhus’ future projects is called City Shark. City Shark is a sailing drone that collects waste on the water surface in the port of Aarhus. The next phase will be to use a satellite-controlled air drone, connected to the EU’s new satellite, to detect small amounts of oil waste. The air drone will then send the coordinates to the sailing drone who will collect the waste.