MIND.
Where
meets
Vision
The place to build and live the future
MIND Milano Innovation District is the new Italian centre of scientific excellence and district of the city. It is a vast and contemporary international district. This place of knowledge and sustainable growth is open to anyone who innovates, does research or studies, to institutions and companies alike – to people’s lives.
Research, business and life converge in the heart of Italian dynamism
MIND was created to seize a unique opportunity for the country. To create a vital space for the local region, a reason for community development, in a strategic location in Northern Italy: the area of one million square metres on the outskirts of Milan, already connected to the main transport networks, which hosted the 2015 Universal Exhibition.
The project originates from a deep public-private partnership between Arexpo and Lendlease. The goal is to create and nurture an entrepreneurial environment for the socio-economic growth of the country – to become a European pole of global importance, focused on scientific and technological progress, the exchange between research and business, and the involvement of society and the local community.
The project and masterplan of Milano Innovation District inform the vision to conceive a place on the deep merging of several vocations: an innovation hub with specialised scientific areas (Life Sciences and the City of the Future), where public and private excellences meet in dialogue with each other, attracting talents and resources. An authentic urban district that is dynamic, green, and well cared for – a common ground where 60,000 people transit every day. A new neighbourhood of Milan, an integral part of the city, designed to accommodate all the activities of a space projected into the future, from living to entertainment.
MIND is a unique place in Italy and beyond. A district for excellence that attracts resources and talent, a lively neighbourhood that spawns encounters and energy, according to a new model of regeneration
A city founded on the values of tomorrow
The challenges of MINDThe challenges of MINDThe project carries with it a mission that goes beyond economic growth. MIND is the district based on the most significant challenges of our time: the environment, health and well-being, social inclusion. Along its streets and in the buildings, people can experiment with new ways of working, come into contact with new technologies, and experience a more virtuous manner of moving and living. A great “city of the future,” MIND is the most effective tool for spreading the culture of sustainability and demonstrating the collective value of scientific progress.
The challenges of MINDThe challenges of MINDOur MIND is
The ecosystem of innovation
Different minds, a community in genuine dialogue
MIND is the point of reference for those who innovate in quality, exchange of knowledge, and international connections. The ecosystem is unique on several levels: its size, excellence in the Life Sciences, and for being an environment of deep integration in physical spaces and activities – an area designed to multiply opportunities and relationships.
A lab of knowledge, the meeting ground for experiences
As a hub and catalyst for development, from the start, MIND has brought together scientific and technological players with different origins and goals, all linked by an interest in progress, experimentation, and new perspectives for the advancement of society.
Research centres and R&D departments, large corporations and startups, all the realities that have settled here find strength and dynamism in the opportunities for synergy and the public-interest excellences in Life Science: the Human Technopole institute and the IRCCS Galeazzi health centre. Together with Fondazione Triulza and the upcoming Science Campus of the University of Milan, they form the original core of the ecosystem.
The strength of MIND lies in this rapidly growing community. The district opens up to the fields of knowledge, the production and social world, and promotes technological collaboration and transfer, helping future generations of scientific and business talent connect. The model is the “Triple helix” of innovation, formed by higher education and research, the public system, and private capital, capable of driving and accelerating the most promising projects.
From universities to startups to the Third Sector: MIND offers innovators an environment of opportunity, a place of proactive relationships based on the common interest for the general well-being
Living lab, meeting space, an incubator of opportunities: the physical dimension is the other crucial dimension of the district. Compared to traditional science centres, MIND welcomes residents and visiting realities in an ecosystem integrated by design according to the idea of a diffuse Common ground. An intelligent urban space where everything – from the streets to the parks, up to the buildings themselves – can transform simple proximity into real relationships.
The main hubs
The main hubs
Human Technopole
Biology, bioinformatics, chemistry. The new Italian institute for life sciences, with more than a thousand researchers for the well-being of people.
IRCCS Galeazzi
A hub for 21st Century healthcare in a modern 16-story hospital. A major space for care and research (digital medicine, telerehabilitation).
Fondazione Triulza
The social hub in the Cascina Triulza facilities brings together dozens of
Third Sector and Civil Economy organisations. Focus: social innovation.
SCIENCE CAMPUS OF UNIMI
The future centre for the
science faculties of Statale,
the University of Milan.
With over 18,000 incoming students.
Federated Innovation. A new approach
Discover moreDiscover moreMIND furthers its strengthening with the launch of Federated Innovation, a collaboration model between private companies promoted by Lendlease with the contribution of Cariplo Factory as catalyst player.
The program offers all companies involved (competitors included) a communal environment for exchange and acceleration, a habitat within the ecosystem where they can share skills and ideas for new products or services in Life Sciences and City of the Future.
A community of innovators, united under the “Collaborate to compete” principle, that relies on over thirty major companies at the time of launch.
We MIND your
MIND is Milano
The new step of a contemporary city
The gateway and crucial intersection to a European network, MIND offers itself to Milan as the natural horizon of the city’s urban development. Work, services, entertainment, culture, sports, nature: a district to live day and night, a space of architectural quality and in direct communication with the evolution of life models, ready to host valuable experiences.
Connected to the world, life-friendly.An attractive reality, open to the whole region
MIND represents a further renewal of the urban fabric of Milan, a new proof of the transformation of the city and its affirmation as a centre of economic, cultural, and tourist attraction globally. It does so in a privileged position: at the city gates, on the main axis of Northern Italy, connected to the metro network and the primary European transport systems.
The district is the ideal place of interaction between Milan and international energies. Here, the protagonists of the global Italian city, the centre of finance and business, the European reference for human capital and creativity, meet. From here, the best ideas and projects can come into contact with a network of players that are active globally.
The innovation district opens up naturally to the local community, with its squares, public spaces and stores, large green areas, and sports facilities. MIND is a place for work and living, a university campus, a destination for leisure time, a venue for events. In other words, a contemporary space of true sociality, enlivened throughout the week, designed to accommodate people of different ages, passions, interests: a place to meet and discover, rich in experiences and content, which tells the dynamism of all of Milan.
With an urban regeneration venture unique in its ambition, MIND combines local vibrancy and livability with an international dimension: a meeting space between Lombardy and Europe
Surpassing its local level, MIND is in dialogue with a far wider system. The district lies at the heart of a macro-region home to scientific and production innovation, an area that has constantly excelled on the continental level and further. In Northern Italy, and particularly in Lombardy, MIND sees an academic and industrial system at the forefront of national and European development: a scenario already rich in companies, initiatives, and active projects in the fields of interest (Life Sciences, City of the Future) that have historically been in relation to the global markets.
2.4 bn €
private investmentsMilano
Milano
Legacy
At the origins of the project: Expo
MIND sits on the area that hosted the 2015 Universal Exposition, benefiting from the infrastructural works required for the event when the site had served as a home and exchange platform for 141 countries and welcomed 21 million visitors.
The district incorporates many of the values of Expo Milano 2015: the forceful global ambition of the project, the close collaboration between public and private sectors, and the attention to innovation. The experience of the great event also inspires in the care for the landscape and the quality of spaces, two of the top priorities of MIND’s masterplan.
Over time, Arexpo has promoted many activities, including major concerts, sporting events, and shows, which have made it possible to keep the site alive and available while awaiting the transformation.
Governance
A strategic model of public-private partnership
MIND Milano Innovation District is the result of the collaboration between Arexpo, the public company that owns the area, and Lendlease, a global real estate firm.
Arexpo and Lendlease work jointly on the management of MIND.
The relationship relies on an innovative model in the Italian scenario, the perspective of a long-term collaboration designed to promote the sustainability of the venture.
The enduring involvement of both parties – public guarantor and private investor – is strategic in attracting the dynamism of the territory and demonstrates the mutual commitment to a high-quality place that will increase its value over time.
Founded in 2011 to acquire the land where the Expo 2015 site would be built, the company has since been tasked with breathing new life into the area as an international
knowledge centre.
Arexpo is responsible
for the institutional initiatives
promoted by the district.
The group, which is active on four continents with its projects, was awarded the concession for the area in 2017 for a duration of 99 years. Its total investment in the operation will be around € 2.5 billion.
Lendlease is responsible
for the design and
private development of the district.