Resources

Details

Title: Regional clusters in Europe-[World Wide Web]

Notes: A regional cluster approach is becoming increasingly recognised as a valuable tool to foster economic development. However, there is a need for a more precise conceptualisation of what constitute regional clusters and related phenomena in order to perform æcluster analysesÆ and draw policy implications. Based on such a conceptualisation the report concludes that æunderdevelopedÆ clusters may be upgraded by, in particular, stimulating more intense formal and informal, efficiency-enhancing co-operation between firms and strengthening links to the knowledge infrastructure. Efforts to identify and map regional clusters, coupled with analyses of strengths and weaknesses in major clusters, may be a first step in designing and implementing cluster policies, following the recent approaches taken in some countries. Such a cluster approach allows focussing on areas of real opportunity within a regional economy. Thus, cluster policy should not be seen as just a way to support a few selected, strong or potentially strong, regional industries. Rather, cluster policy is an instrument to promote regional economic development and structural changes more generally, often through enhancing regional innovation capability. Cluster policy also encourages the integration of many different aspects of economic development and development policy. The comparative survey of 34 regional clusters (of which approximately half are ætraditionalÆ clusters and half of them are science based) in 17 European countries reveals that most of the surveyed clusters are growing in both the number of firms and employees. This result reflects a bias towards science based and young clusters in the survey. However, the survey also hints at regional clusters performing in general better than the national average in certain industries. Theoretical considerations, and several case studies point in the same direction; regional clusters often constitute fertile ground for stimulating innovation capability and competitiveness of existing firms, encourage entrepreneurship and may attract inward investments. The cluster survey demonstrates a mixed picture of a globalisation trend (which means that cluster firms increasingly are involved in supranational knowledge and production networks) and a regionalisation trend (which means that cluster firms still rely on regional resources and collaborators for their competitiveness), which influence the development of clusters. This observation has some policy consequences. Cluster policy must not be too regionally or locally focused, for example in only trying to stimulate regional collaboration, organisations and resources. This is particularly important if it is not at the regional level where the essential knowledge is located or where the important learning takes place. Thus, clusters policy could include encouraging more global sourcing of some components, as well as attracting branches of multinational enterprises into the clusters, if such initiatives are seen to increase the competitiveness of the cluster. Principally, æcluster policyÆ is seen to be of two main types: (i) to support the growth of existing or embryonic regional clusters in different ways, and (ii) to let knowledge as regards the working of regional cluster inform policy-making in general. Both types favour a focus on local/regional systems of firms (and often SMEs), on firmsÆ value-adding environment, on indigenous growth processes, on social processes, and on the role of public authorities as broker between companies and local organisations. The EU, national and regional governments have designed and implemented different types of cluster policy tools. Although the approach and the terminology differ, these policies share a number of key objectives and characteristics: (i) the policies deal with broad issues, as they are seen as an instrument to promote economic development and structural changes, (ii) they are based on improved business cooperation and networking, (iii) they emphasise the linking of firms to the (regional) technological infrastructure, (iv) the policies emphasise the role of public or semi-public organisations as mediators in encouraging inter-firm networks and joint projects, (v) they underline the need to improve innovation capability, knowledge management etc. in firms by improving the interactive learning process between firms and their environment, (vi) they focus on the need to stimulate the creation of specialised factors, and specialised knowledge in particular, and (vii) some policies stress the need to reach critical masses of firms, regional located organisations and regional co-operation. Based on experiences from existing instruments and theoretical considerations the report concludes that policy to support (existing or embryonic) regional clusters may generally aim to: (i) strengthen inter-firm collaboration and business networking, and (ii) build up or strengthen organisations for technology transfer corresponding to firmsÆ needs. These two tasks basically mean to upgrade regional clusters to become regional innovation systems. The first aim often raises the need for proactive consultancy and a supervising role from an intermediate partner to encourage trust building and inter-firm collaboration. The second aim points to the importance of local and regional organisations, and in particular knowledge and training organisations, for the development of regional clusters. These organisations ideally should play a two-fold intermediary role; they keep abreast of technological improvements taking place in other areas, and have close contact with local firms in order to be aware of their problems.

>> More