The talent next door: building stronger bridges across Greater Copenhagen
Talent attraction is becoming one of the defining challenges for the Greater Copenhagen region. Across both sides of the Öresund, universities, research institutions, startups and established companies are looking out for people with the specific scientific, technical, and commercial skills needed to sustain growth. But the challenge is not only about attracting talent from abroad. It is also about making better use of the talent that is already here, and creating more opportunities for people to discover each other across borders.
The untapped talent already in the region
The talent discussion also needs to go beyond students and researchers.
Denmark and Sweden have for years discussed the challenge of integrating accompanying spouses and partners of international employees into the labour market. Previous Danish initiatives have explicitly identified highly educated spouses as part of the country’s potential talent pool, while research from the Copenhagen Talent Bridge initiative highlighted the importance of supporting accompanying spouses, showing that spouse-focused activities contributed significantly to retaining international talent in Denmark and could have a wider retention effect on the international employees they accompanied.
More recently, the debate has again highlighted the idea that these accompanying partners can represent an overlooked source of highly skilled talent: people who may already live in Denmark, have international experience and qualifications, but remain outside the labour market because they lack professional networks or an entry point into the local system.
In other words, sometimes the talent we are looking for does not need to be attracted from somewhere else. It is already here.
The same perspective is relevant on the Swedish side of the Oresund. If Greater Copenhagen is to function as one labour and innovation market, the region needs to make it easier for international professionals, students, PhDs and researchers to understand opportunities on both sides of the border.
Copenhagen showed the scale of the opportunity
A very visible example of the aforementioned need came just recently with International Citizen Days 2026 in Copenhagen.
Held on 25–26 September in Copenhagen’s in collaboration with the Cross Border Talent Bridge program, the event brought together international citizens, public authorities, organisations and companies around talks, workshops, networking and opportunities for internationals living in Greater Copenhagen.
With around 7.000 participants, the event demonstrated the scale of the international community already living and building their careers in the region.
The challenge is to connect that talent with the opportunities available across the region.
From Copenhagen to Lund
This is also why the next life science Career Day at Medicon Village on 25 November 2026 is particularly relevant.
Following the growth of previous editions, Medicon Village and the Medical Faculty at Lund University (together with the Cross Border Talent Bridge program) are expanding the event further. The 2026 Career Day will bring together master’s students, PhD candidates, and researchers interested in careers in the life science industry, with participation from several Lund University´s faculties and companies looking to connect with highly educated talent. The event has already grown considerably, from around 180 students attending in 2024 to approximately 350 in 2025, while company participation has also increased. Importantly, the Career Day is not simply a recruitment exhibition; It is a meeting point, a place where students, PhDs, postdocs and early-career professionals can hear directly from people working in the industry, discover career paths they may not have considered, meet companies from across the Oresund region and begin conversations that may develop into internships, thesis projects, employment or longer-term professional relationships.
From thesis projects to career opportunities
Over the past years, Medicon Village has worked closely with Synapse – Life Science Connect Sweden – to create opportunities for students and early-career researchers to meet companies and research groups. One example is the Synapse Find Your Thesis Career Fair. The event brought together students looking for thesis projects with researchers and companies offering opportunities, giving participants the chance to discuss projects directly with potential supervisors and employers. The event was organised as part of the Cross-border Talent Bridge initiative, aimed at strengthening talent attraction and retention across the Oresund region.
These matchmaking activities may appear simple, but they address an important structural issue. A student can have the right education and a company can have the right opportunity, yet the two may never meet.
Creating the meeting point can make the difference.
The same principle has been applied through Synapse’s wider activities at Medicon Village, including mentorship and career-oriented networking. The Synapse mentorship programme, for example, connects students and early-career life science talents with experienced professionals from industry, creating opportunities for career guidance, knowledge exchange and professional networks.
Giving companies the tools to work with international talent
Attracting international talent is only one side of the coin. For companies to truly benefit from international expertise, they also need the knowledge and practical tools to recruit, onboard, integrate and retain people from different cultural and professional backgrounds.
This is the focus of the ToolBox seminar series organised by Medicon Village together with Ideon Science Park and International Citizen Hub Lund, as part of the Cross-border Talent Bridge project. The initiative is designed to give companies practical knowledge to make international recruitment easier and to turn cultural and international differences into strengths rather than barriers.
The first seminar, Inclusive Talent Management, focuses on the value that international professionals can bring beyond their technical skills, including new perspectives, international networks, cultural insights and knowledge of other markets. It also addresses how language and cultural differences can influence recruitment, onboarding and collaboration, and how organisations can create an environment where international talent can contribute and thrive.
The second seminar, The Opportunity to Hire International Talent, takes a more practical approach to the recruitment process, covering immigration requirements, recruitment planning, relocation, residence and work permits, and the practical considerations involved when hiring both within and outside the EU.
Together, the Toolbox activities recognise an important part of the talent equation: attracting international professionals is not enough if companies do not have the knowledge, structures and confidence to employ and retain them successfully.
Building the Greater Copenhagen talent ecosystem
The Synapse matchmaking activities, International Citizen Days in Copenhagen, the Toolbox seminars and Career Day at Medicon Village are different initiatives, but they address the same underlying challenge: how do we make better connections between the talent that is available and the opportunities that exist across Greater Copenhagen?
The region has a strong concentration of universities, research infrastructure, research hospitals, life science companies and international professionals. The opportunity is to make the connections between these communities stronger, more systematic and more cross-border.
That means looking not only at how we attract new talent, but also at how we connect students with companies, international professionals with employers, and accompanying partners with opportunities. It also means ensuring that companies have the knowledge and practical tools needed to recruit, onboard and retain international professionals, turning cultural and international differences into strengths rather than barriers.
Ultimately, we need to create more opportunities for talented people to meet the right organisations, while helping organisations become better equipped to recognise and make use of the talent available to them.
The Oresund is a geographical border. For talent, it does not have to be a professional one.
More information
For more information, please feel free to contact our Francesco Bez, Innovation Manager at Medicon Village Innovation: francesco.bez@mediconvillage.se