In 2025, Aarhus University’s entrepreneurship hub The Kitchen will move to another building in the University City right next to a wide variety of business activities.

2021.06.25 | Signe Opstrup

Today, the Kitchen is housed in the previous hospital kitchen on the former municipal hospital site. Photo: Lars Kruse.

In four years, The Kitchen will move to a different building in the University City. The Kitchen will be moving into the new building complex that currently houses the region’s hospital laundry and boiler house. With the upcoming location of the university’s entrepreneurship hub, students and researchers will get neighbours such as development departments of large companies, foundations, organisations and small companies that all collaborate with Aarhus University. It is part of the overall development plan for the University City to gather business activities at the northern end of the area.

Lone Ryg Olsen, AU’s director of enterprise and innovation, is excited about The Kitchen’s future location. According to her, it will help strengthen the university’s entrepreneurial environment internally and externally.

“We are going to get a raw and attractive building which will strengthen the framework for AU’s initiatives in relation to entrepreneurship and business collaboration across the faculties. And with a location next to a wide variety of business facilities, we will get a strong basis for creating and maintaining successful cooperation internally at the university while further exploring the opportunities that surround us, and giving AU’s researchers and students a solid foundation for establishing new relations,” she says.

Permanent location

It was a temporary location when The Kitchen moved into the previous hospital kitchen on the former municipal hospital site in February 2020. Back then, it was decided to keep the raw and industrial look, and today this is one of The Kitchen’s distinctive features. This will be maintained when the kitchen moves to the laundry.

The current buildings will be demolished as part of the development plan for the University City. The building is not in a state which is suitable for office facilities in the long term.

Level 2 also moves

The future location also has the advantage that the current Level 2 activities in The Kitchen, which consist of entrepreneurial businesses that are almost ready to stand on their own two feet, will also be able to continue and expand as a natural part of The Kitchen.

As mentioned, the actual move to The Kitchen’s new buildings is planned for summer 2025, but a process is already starting to get the entrepreneurship hub’s employees’ and users’ input for the optimal layout of the future entrepreneurship hub.

Find out more:

If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact programme director of the physical development of Aarhus University’s campus, Charlotte Lyngholm Bom at cl@au.dk

Facts about The Kitchen:

• The Kitchen is the centre of the university’s interdisciplinary entrepreneurial activities and network hub for academic entrepreneurs.
• The Kitchen currently houses 122 entrepreneurs and 15 employees.

Facts about the development of the University City:

Get an overview of which projects are under way in the University City

Forskningsfondens Ejendomsselskab A/S is in charge of establishing the future facilities for business and industry and partners in the University City.