The first Growth Center was established in 1959 in New York. When Joseph Mansko, an American businessman and the owner of a 10,000 square meter building in this city, realized that no one could pay the rent for his building, he decided to give this big building to 30 craftsmen instead of a tenant.

The Mansko’s building, now known as the Batavia Industrial Center, is still active with about 1,000 employees.

 The way the building was given to those craftsmen was followed by other Growth Centers worldwide.  

In Iran, growth centers are born with the emergence of science and technology parks; however, with the efforts to reach the third generation of universities, entrepreneurial universities, this could be applied to universities as well; moreover, the establishment of growth centers for technological units in the country’s universities resulted from the aftermath of developing such centers.

The growth center or incubator is one of the tools of economic growth used to support educated entrepreneurs by providing public facilities and opportunities; it provides the ground for new companies to develop. Today, the use of Growth Centers is one of the accepted tools for transforming creativity and scientific as well as research achievements into products that can be presented to the market ensuring entrepreneurship development.

Today there are more than 3,000 incubators worldwide, mostly in America and Japan.

In the entrepreneurship literature, incubators or Growth Centers are centers created to nurture or establish small businesses. Incubators are projects based on innovation and consisting of small management staff.