LU Open at Lund University promoted innovation in a broad sense, preferably in the contact areas between universities, companies and society. The mission of LU Open was to initiate, develop and run projects in collaboration with other actors in the region and internationally. The activities were based on innovation projects with companies, researchers, students and public organizations such as municipalities and the region with history from the Öresund platforms and the Öresund Science Region. Theme areas were the future materials, the future cities, health / food of the future as well as ICT, social innovations and student innovations. The projects were tools for jointly creating new solutions to external challenges. LU Open was part of the unit Research, Collaboration and Innovation at Lund University and worked in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary processes such as the national research and innovation agendas as well as strategic innovation areas as well as being the node for the funding network for the implementation of the innovation strategy of the region Skåne.
LU Open was operational between 2012 – 2017 with a project portfolio of 54 M Euro, operating cost on average 4.5 M Euro and income over 3 years to LU / LTH 7 M Euro. 26 000 students were engaged over 5 years in various activities. Over 2000 companies were involved and in average 50 projects per year were conducted with funding from the EU, national authorities, regions and municipalities in addition to LU and companies.