Herøya Industripark AS has invested around 50 million NOKs in modernisations over the past five years, benefitting Equinor, Yara, Hydro, Inovyn, NOAH, Bilfinger, Project Invest and now Ranold who recently moved into brand new premises on the 5th floor.

«Win-Win»

The Ranold team, successful in calculating the optimal process flow, located at Herøya Research Park since 2015, enjoys the positive change.

"It's always fun with something new," this happy crowd in Ranold comments. Here in the reading corner in front of a specially designed wall with their cool logo. From left: Trygve Rinde, Morten Hansen Jondahl, Vegar Grüner, Mikkel Bakli, Marit Kleven, Lars Solli, Jon Gunnerød.

"We are very satisfied with the acoustics in the offices and cost-effective premises, it is a nice touch, says Jon Gunnerød, COO in Ranold.

"This is almost a win-win for both of us", comments Trygve Rinde, general manager of Ranold. "Ranold got new premises, and the building owner was able to modernize an entire floor here in the research park".

Tove Kilen, Principal Engineer Facilities at Herøya Industripark AS, nods in agreement.

The 5th floor is the first full office floor, about 1000 m², which has been converted into state-of-the-art premises and is now being used.

Gather activities and open up

Tove Kilen, following closely up on upgrade projects in the research park, talks about companies' new needs to gather activities and at the same time open up.

Tove Kilen, Principal Engineer Facilities, Herøya Industripark AS

"We place great emphasis on building efficient work environments and common areas that open up for informal meeting places. The Research Park is being upgraded, room by room and floor by floor. We use the opportunities, among other things, when companies in the research park want to relocate activity and when new companies are added", she says.

"About 5000 m² of offices, laboratories, pilot facilities and technical rooms have been modernized in recent years", Kilen states.

New spaces for SINTEF soon ready

Kilen is currently in the process, together with Bilfinger and others, to complete 1000 m² of offices on the floor below. Sintef TelTek will move into the entire 4th floor during October. "We are rolling out our office concept adapted for Sintef and with the same social zone as on the floor above", Kilen says.

Now open: On the 5th floor there are open spaces to meet, relax and play table tennis. NOAH and Ranold are office neighbors on the floor.

Important to build around entrepreneurs and innovators

Herøya Industripark AS has ambitious plans to expand and integrate existing research environments in a large-scale strategic effort to establish a center for industrial innovation at Herøya.

"It is particularly important, more now than ever, to build around entrepreneurs and innovators" says Sverre Gotaas, CEO, Herøya Industripark AS. "And it is absolutely crucial for someone to take the lead. That is what we are doing. Together with Sintef, which also considers Herøya to be an important place for an innovation centre, the University of South-Eastern Norway, Proventia, industry cluster IGT and researchers at the Research Park are all important stakeholders in a centre of this kind. We are working along those lines in order to persuade people to see that they should come here if they have a good idea or a difficult problem to be resolved".