Norway’s innovation emergency
In 2015, hopes were high for Norwegian biotechnology. Oslo-based Algeta had recently been acquired for $2.9Bn and there was political excitement for the field as a driver of growth.
Since 2015, the Research Council of Norway alone has awarded more than 22Bn NOK for biotechnology. This funding supported a solid academic base, with strong industry and international collaborations and particular expertise in marine, cancer and antibody research.
Despite this support, biotechnology commercialisation still lags behind comparator countries. R&D spending (as a % of GDP and per capita) is lower in both academia and industry, and researchers are less likely to patent their inventions or create new companies.
Furthermore, new companies have struggled to scale. Biotechnology companies founded in Denmark or Sweden are twice as likely to raise more than $20M and are significantly more likely to be acquired or listed on the stock market.
Advances in AI, geopolitical uncertainty and tighter funding conditions mean there has never been more urgency to act. Many nations are already investing more and reforming their research systems around bio-sovereignty and innovation-led growth. Norway must close the gap or fall further behind.
The search for novel solutions
To develop this roadmap for academic research-intensive innovation, we spent the last five years looking beyond headline funding figures to understand how we can unlock Norway’s potential for biotechnology innovation.
Using the Centre for Digital Life Norway’s national network of researchers, we designed and ran on-the-ground pilot experiments and interventions in health, marine, agritech and industrial biotechnology.
These pilots were high-risk attempts to overcome challenges and accelerate the innovation process. They provide unique insights into what works and, just as importantly, what does not work in the Norwegian system.
To place our findings in a broader context, we gathered innovation competitiveness metrics and used them to create an international biotechnology innovation scoreboard.
Finally, we consulted funding agencies, universities and research institutes, technology transfer offices, entrepreneurs, investors, industry and other actors. These views helped refine the recommendations, but ultimately, they are based not on opinion, but on real-world experiences.
An expanded version of the roadmap will be published by the end of 2026.
Our recommendations
These recommendations offer practical and data-informed solutions to the challenges faced by biotechnology researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs in Norway today.
The recommendations matrix is divided into the major themes of national alignment, skills and culture, collaboration, acceleration and funding. Within each theme, we offer recommendations to policymakers, academic institutions, innovation support organisations, investors and industry on how to strengthen the path from research ideas to innovation.
Some of the recommendations are about simply spreading best practice to all corners of the country. Others offer more ambitious opportunities to reorientate the research system to deliver economic and real-world value.
The recommendations are not designed to offer the final word on research-intensive innovation. Late-stage commercialisation and investment require their own analysis, but this roadmap offers a first step towards Norwegian biotechnology fulfilling its potential for greater economic growth and societal impact.
Who the recommendations are for
The table shows recommendations for five audiences.
| Theme | Policymakers Research Council of Norway, Innovation Norway, Government Ministries | Institutions University and institute leadership & administration | Enablers Technology transfer offices, clusters, innovation units | Investors Angel investors, venture capital firms, wealth funds | Industry Small, medium and large enterprises |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Align Unite government, research institutions, investors and industry together behind a long-term national ambition for bio-sovereignty and innovation-led growth. | Establish a national biotechnology ambition in the 2027 Long-term Plan for Research and Innovation, with sector-specific goals for bio-sovereignty and innovation-led growth.
Introduce simple, transparent national standard terms for spin-out companies including intellectual property, licence fees, royalties and equity stakes, in line with emerging European best practice. | Make innovation an explicit part of every institution’s mission, strategy and staff assessment, alongside research and teaching. | Build on the national association of innovation companies to pool expertise, common practices & data on innovation outcomes, and to link with leading Nordic and European partners. | Co-define what makes high-risk research investable in each sector of the national ambition, and publish openly to support researchers and funders. | Define sector-specific industrial ambitions and work with policymakers to co-create mechanisms for addressing gaps in industrial R&D investment. |
| Upskill Foster an innovation culture by making entrepreneurial training and experience outside academia a standard part of study and research careers. | Provide long-term dedicated funding for innovation placements in other non-academic organisations for master’s students, doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers. | Offer credit-bearing courses in entrepreneur-ship, regulation and intellectual property, and recognise innovation in career progression. | Run hands-on innovation bootcamps and competitions open to science & business students and researchers across all institutions. | Share how investors assess research-based ideas through pitch competitions, guest teaching, and placements in investment firms. | Bring real commercial challenges into teaching and training through guest teaching, input on programme design, and hosting placements. |
| Engage Involve users, industry and investors from the start of every innovation journey, and use feedback to drive innovations. | Make documented conversations with those who would use, buy or invest in the technology or product a pre-condition for applied research and innovation grants. | Simplify two-way movement of people between academia and industry, and incentivise and reward industrial career experience. | Match research teams with potential customers, industry partners and experienced mentors in Norway, the Nordics and beyond. | Hold regular, structured sessions where investors hear early-stage projects directly from researchers and give candid feedback. | Assign industry representatives to help shape academic research by working with teams from idea stage onwards. |
| Accelerate Build a national support system that accelerates promising research ideas towards investment, licensing, and industrial partnership. | Supply seed funding for nationally available accelerator and mentoring programmes that can be co-funded by existing commerci-alisation and follow-on awards. | Build cohorts of ambitious scientist entrepreneurs, foster peer support, and provide mentoring and coordination. | Jointly run recurring national biotechnology accelerators using expert trainers and Nordic & international partners. | Give academic teams shared, investor-grade assessment of their risks, key experiments, regulatory paths, and funding needs. | Define industry challenges from multiple biotechnology sectors and feed them into accelerators and technology transfer offices. |
| Launch Bridge the funding gaps so that public, institutional and private money carries promising research from idea to investment and growth. | Develop milestone based follow-on funding awards that are large enough to derisk high-cost biotechnology innovations.
Review laws and policies that shape innovation including the state’s investment in private funds and tax policy. | Create small, flexible internal innovation grants that buy out researcher time and pay for outside testing and specialist expertise. | Train teams to map their technology’s full funding path and align patenting, licensing and spin-out based on technology and market conditions. | Form a standing Nordic co-investment network with international specialist investors to help teams close later and larger funding rounds. | Co-invest with public funders in shared scale-up, data and AI infrastructure for researchers, industry and start-ups. |
About the Innovation Roadmap
The Innovation Roadmap is a collaboration between NMBU, NTNU, OUS, SINTEF, UiB, UiO and UiT. It is funded by the Research Council of Norway.