History
The formal concept of business incubation began in the USA in 1959 when Joseph Mancuso opened the Batavia Industrial Center in a Batavia, New York, warehouse. Incubation expanded in the U.S. in the 1980s and spread to the UK and Europe through various related forms (e.g. innovation centres, pépinières d’entreprises, technopoles/science parks).
The U.S.-based National Business Incubation Association estimates that there are about 7,000 incubators worldwide. As of October 2006, there were more than 1,400 incubators in North America, up from only 12 in 1980. Her Majesty's Treasury identified around 25 incubation environments in the UK in 1997; by 2005, UKBI identified around 270 incubation environments across the country. A study funded by the European Commission in 2002 identified around 900 incubation environments in Western Europe.
Incubation activity has not been limited to developed countries; incubation environments are now being implemented in developing countries and raising interest for financial support from organisations such as UNIDO and the World Bank.
On November 3, 2010, New York City broke ground on its sixth business incubator and the first in the Bronx called the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator which is a joint venture between the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Sunshine Suites.
Incubators are going through a renaissance as of 2011. New experiments like Virtual Business Incubators are bringing the resources of entrepreneurship hubs like Silicon Valley to remote locations all over the world.
Read more about this topic: Business Incubator
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