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Infrastructure
The BLSI incubator provides innovative young entrepreneurs with a fully renovated 2,350 m² work space. The infrastructure was designed to have a modular structure that allows you to combine different spaces depending on the new needs you encounter as your company grows.
We have adopted a range of all-inclusive services to allow you to focus on your core business as soon as you set up at BLSI; these services include costs linked to the private use of spaces - heating, electricity, cleaning, ventilation, secure Internet access, telephone subscription and professional quality furnishings.
Offices
The administrative areas are 14 or 28 m² modules that can be combined using internal doors. The 14 m² offices can accommodate one or two workstations, while the 28 m² offices can accommodate up to four.
They are provided furnished and each workstation has a desk, an ergonomic office chair, a tall cabinet and a drawer unit.
Each workstation will also have a telephone extension with its own number and secure, high-speed Internet access. A Wi-Fi network also covers the entire building.
Offices
Laboratories
The laboratory areas are 28 m² modules that can be combined using the internal doors provided for this purpose. You can choose between two levels of equipment depending on what you need for your activities.
For the higher level, the laboratories are specifically fitted with:
- two lab benches
- a sink with hot and cold water and an eyewash facility.
- natural gas
- compressed air
- connectors for installing an extractor or a ventilated cabinet
- a range of wall cabinets and storage space
- laboratory chairs
Labs
For less complicated needs, you can choose a laboratory with a laboratory bench, the connectors required to install an extractor or ventilated cabinet, a range of wall cabinets, and laboratory chairs.
If your activity requires an environmental permit, the application will be facilitated by the existence of safety instructions, maintenance contracts and a waste collection circuit, as well as the fact that BLSI is located in a productive high-technology activity zone.
Furthermore, as with the administrative spaces, your laboratory will have a telephone extension with its own number and secure, high-speed Internet access.
Meeting rooms
The favourable development of business activities requires a lot of meetings, either with partners, suppliers, clients or prospective clients. We therefore attached particular importance to the availability of professional, clean and tidy meeting rooms so you can promote your brand image with your contacts.
At BLSI, you are free to use three sizes of meeting room according to your needs:
- a room that can host up to 8 people
- a room that can host up to 14 people
- a large room that can host either up to 28 people seated at tables (U-shaped configuration), or up to 35 people seated (theatre-style configuration).
Meeting rooms
All our meetings rooms have a widescreen LED with integrated loud speakers to share your computerised documents via an HDMI or VGA connection, a telephone extension and wired or wireless symmetrical high-speed Internet access (important for videoconferences, for example). We can provide an audio-conference telephone on request. The large room also has a flipchart and water fountain.
Our residents enjoy ten hours' free use a month of the first two rooms mentioned above. Additional hours are invoiced at a very modest amount. This mechanism was adopted to guarantee the fair use of meetings rooms by all the resident start-ups.
We can order lunch or provide fizzy drinks, coffee or tea if required (additional charge applies).
We can also make our meeting rooms available to companies outside the incubator, if available.
Relaxation areas
Your visitors arrive at the welcome desk and are directed to your room or the meeting room you have booked. In this same central area, we manage the sending and receipt of your mail and parcels. This means that you do not need to worry if important equipment needs to be sent to you while you are travelling.
A cafeteria and a fully-fitted kitchenette are available. You will find a microwave oven, fridges, crockery, a dish washer, a Nespresso® coffee machine, a water fountain and a soda distributor. A lounge area containing comfortable armchairs is also available on the upper floor. Their location in the heart of the incubator was chosen to promote spontaneous meetings and thus conversations amongst the community of residents. The aerial view of Brussels is also very popular, as it allows you to relax and recharge your batteries while spending time in the cafeteria.
Our residents also have access to fully fitted shower cubicles; these are very popular with people arriving at work by bicycle or those who do sports at lunchtime.
Friendly spaces
Technical equipment
All BLSI rooms have secure, symmetrical high-speed Internet access. This is possible thanks to an optical fibre connection. We have designed the incubator's IT architecture so that it maximises the protection of the internal Internet network and the obviously sensitive data of our residents. We operate a sub-network that allows each company to work completely securely. The symmetrical nature of the Internet connection is essential for technology companies that need a high bandwidth to provide their IT services externally. A Wi-Fi network also covers the entire incubator.
Every workstation is fitted with a VoIP telephone that guarantees a perfect balance between sound quality, useful functionalities for managing call forwarding or an answerphone, and the price squeezes on outgoing communications (charged in addition to the package price).
All our meeting rooms are equipped with a widescreen LED monitor and the connectors required to display your IT documents and presentations. These screens have integrated loud-speakers that are useful for videos and videoconferencing.
A professional, multi-function printer is also available for printing, scanning and faxing your documents. Only a per-page price is charged for printing.
Lastly, we can also provide you with a storage module if you need to manage a large amount of stock.
Living environment
BLSI is located in the middle of the UCLouvain site that is dedicated to health sciences; 30,000 people visit every day - students, researchers, doctors and clinic patients. The site includes the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, the Faculties of medicine and dentistry, pharmacy and public health together with five internationally-renowned research institutes (de Duve Institute, Institute of NeuroScience, Institute of Experimental and Clinical Research, Institute of Health and Society, Louvain Drug Research Institute). Several colleges can also be found there, taking to 14,000 the number of students registered for subjects are diverse as nutrition, nursing, medical imaging, industrial engineering, marketing, accounting, foreign trade and e-business.
On the campus, you can access various restaurants, visit the Couvreur Pharmaceutical Museum, walk in the sculpture and medicinal plant garden or practise sport in Woluwe Sports Centre. Woluwe Shopping Centre, with 130 commercial brands, is just a 15-minute walk or one metro stop away.
Living environment
Accessibility & Parking
No fewer than three metro stations can be found on the campus. The closest metro station is Vandervelde on line 1 Stockel - Brussels-West Station, a two-minute walk from the incubator. It takes just 15 minutes to reach the city centre and 20 minutes to Brussels-Midi station, where you can catch a Thalys or Eurostar train.
If you arrive by car, our location is ideal as the incubator is just 2 km from the Brussels ring road and 7 km from Brussels-National Airport.
The BLSI incubator has its own secure car park available for use if required. The cost is much lower than normal prices in Brussels and your visitors can park there free of charge. This avoids you having to waste time looking for a parking spot, and we know that this is often an issue in our capital.
If you travel by bicycle, you are free to park it in our secure bicycle parking area.