The County of North Jutland has about 17,000 employees and is thus one of North Jutland’s largest workplaces, with an annual budget on approximately 11 billion DKK. The county deals with the areas: Nature and the environment, trade development, roads and traffic, education and culture, health and social welfare.

Geographically the county covers an area of more than 6,000 square kilometres, has 27 municipalities and a total population of half a million people. The business structure in the County of North Jutland is considerable influenced by many small and medium-sized enterprises. The most dominating areas are foodstuff (farming, fishing and connected industry), iron and metal, construction, mobile phone, tourism and the service sector.

The County of North Jutland has overall political responsibility for development in North Jutland and is one of the leading partners in the innovation building in the region. Innovation and the implementation of new technology have been consistent features in the development policy for the last 10 years. The county is also a key actor in the North Jutland Innovation Forum.

Industrial policy has become more integrated with labour market policy and educational and training policy due to the fact that innovation is also dependent on the development of the qualifications of the workforce. Therefore the focus on business and industry cannot be considered without relation to areas of focus in terms of education and training and the labour market as a whole. The major regional task is then to strengthen the innovative business structure and to be able to adapt the qualifications of the workforce to this structure.

It is therefore important for the County of North Jutland that the companies and workforce in the county have access to the necessary and new knowledge for developing new products. A goal that have been supported by the EU structural funds which The County of North Jutland have been managing several of since late 1985.

The County of North Jutland has together with Aalborg Municipality and Aalborg University and a few other partners established Innovative Forum of Northern Jutland. This regional cooperation has focus on intensified efforts to develop industrial strongholds in North Jutland with focus on nano-, material and health technology and IT and telecommunication.