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Powerful clusters: Main drivers of Europe’s competitiveness

Competitive clusters are powerful engines of economic development and drivers for innovation in the European Union. They provide a fertile business environment for companies, especially Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), to collaborate with research institutions, suppliers, customers and competitors located in the same geographical area. A Commission communication published today, calls for more efforts for facilitating the emergence of world-class clusters in the European Union. It addresses key challenges to achieve this: Deepening the internal market, improving cluster policies, fostering trans-national cooperation, promoting excellence of cluster organisations, and improving the integration of innovative SMEs into clusters.

European Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and industry policy, said: “We need more world-class clusters in the EU. Clusters play a vital role in the much needed innovation of our businesses. They are powerhouses of job creation. Therefore we suggest that cluster policy efforts at all levels should aim at raise excellence and openness for cooperation, while respecting the competitive market-driven nature of clusters.”

Europe does not lack clusters, but it lacks world-class clusters. The European Cluster Observatory has recently identified around 2000 statistically significant agglomerations employing 38% of the European work force. However, the persistent market fragmentation, weak industry-research linkages and insufficient cooperation within the EU imply that clusters in the EU do not always have the necessary critical mass and innovation capacity to sustainably face global competition. In order to create a more efficient framework for cluster support in the EU, the Communication proposes among others to:

1. Further improve the functioning of the internal market and remove remaining barriers, in particular those hampering knowledge flows, mobility of qualified staff or access to finance across borders;.

2. Establish a high-level European Cluster Policy Group to further explore ways on how best assist Member States in supporting the emergence of world-class clusters;

3. Expand the policy dialogue initiated by the European Cluster Alliance among Members States and EU regions for exchanging practices for designing better cluster policies;

4. Further develop the European Cluster Observatory into a full-fledged service to clusters and innovative enterprises for fostering transnational cooperation by developing partnerships across the EU;

5. Launch a pilot scheme offering training programmes and platform for cooperation of cluster managers and which could help prepare a quality label for cluster organisations as new supporting forms of innovative SMEs;

To fully reap the benefits of these actions, the Commission will further streamline its initiatives that are relevant to cluster support such as those within the Cohesion Policy, the Framework Programme for Research and Development and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, with a view to facilitate the emergence and accelerate the development of more world-class clusters in Europe.

For more information, see:

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/innovation/index_en.htm