Norwegian Smart Care Cluster and Norway Health Tech will work together more closely to strengthen internationalization within health technology, and will in future offer a more robust platform for its members.
The collaboration has a clear aim: to connect the cluster’s resources in order to realize more international opportunities for the cluster’s members. This includes joint projects and funding initiatives for the benefit of members in both clusters. Through this coordination, the clusters facilitate the members to achieve better results and a strengthened offer, which can make a difference in how Norwegian health technology companies position themselves on the global market.
Helps companies with global ambitions
In the cooperation agreement, a balanced distribution of roles has been established, where both parties take active roles in the international scaling activities with NHT as the leader of the initiative. NHT has extensive experience with internationalization activities, and since 2017 has developed and implemented accelerator programs and market entry programs. Through these activities, they have helped companies connect to major markets such as the UK, USA, Germany and Singapore. Many companies have found different types of partners and have entered into contracts in these markets based on these programs. With the new cooperation agreement, the offer for Norwegian companies with global ambitions is strengthened. The activities aimed at Germany and Great Britain are supported by the Technology Communication Foundation.
Establishment of resource groups
As part of our strategy to strengthen our international presence, the clusters together have taken a significant step forward by creating dedicated resource groups. These groups are a key element in our ambition to expand the business internationally. We have already established such groups for Germany and the UK, and we are now actively working to expand with resource groups in the USA, Sweden and Denmark. Our aim is to focus our resources and expertise towards these key markets, and this will be our main focus going forward.
The export venture
This collaboration is well in line with Norway’s new export initiative “Hele Norge eksporterer” in the health industry, recently launched by the Government with the aim of doubling export revenues from NOK 22 billion in 2021 to NOK 50 billion by 2030. With an allocation of NOK 20 million for 2024, this investment marks an important steps for Norwegian business and health innovation, and sets the health industry as a priority sector in Norway’s export strategy.
The initiative contains 15 measures to make Norwegian healthcare companies more internationally competitive, including a stronger focus on marketing, branding and international cooperation through Innovation Norway. This new strategy emphasizes the importance of utilizing the health industry’s potential in order to achieve the goal of increasing Norway’s exports outside of oil and gas by 50 percent by 2030, and strengthens the basis for our cooperation.
The background:
Norwegian Smart Care Cluster (NSCC) and Norway Health Tech (NHT) have formalized an extension of their existing cooperation agreement, with a focus on international scaling of member companies within health technology. This step marks a strategic effort to utilize resources, networks and expertise more effectively across the two clusters. The ultimate goal is to strengthen each individual member’s ability to succeed internationally.