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Nurturing clusters: Now a common focus
With over 50 countries having cluster development on their agendas, clustering has today become an accepted part of economic development. The direction of these cluster programmes comes from a range of perspectives:
Addressing competitiveness & innovation; Business retention and expansion; SME development; export development; Skills & training; Building Triple Helix alignment…business, government and academia; Job creation; poverty alleviation; Engagement of disadvantaged communities; R&D, technology transfer, incubators, science parks.
The common element in addressing these objectives is taking a cluster based approach. Discussions within the 50 countries have firmly moved on from ‘should we engage in cluster development?’ to the how: how do we identify the clusters within our community, and then prioritise them for engagement? And what exactly can we do to nurture the priority clusters?
Developing the ‘how’ on cluster development? Over the last decade Cluster Navigators have been active with cluster development on five continents. These clusters have ranged from:
High tech in Australia, Canada, Finland and Sweden, to Rural clusters in Cambodia, Iceland, New Zealand and Tanzania.
Taking the lead in nurturing these clusters have been a range of multilateral, national, regional and local agencies, and private sector organisations.
We have drawn on this extensive experience in developed a comprehensive ‘Five Phases, Twelve Steps’ framework which forms the foundation to our cluster training workshops, and our engagement with specific clusters. This framework is outlined in a number of Ifor Ffowcs-Williams’ publications.
Results from the ‘Five Phases, Twelve Steps’ framework This practical framework has been introduced in over twenty countries, with 2,000 economic development professions graduating from Cluster Navigators’ training workshops.
The framework is being used to nurture clusters in biotech, forestry, film, tourism, engineering, professional services, IT and other sectors. While the framework is common, the action agendas that emerge are tailored to the realities of each cluster. In many of these clusters local teams from across the cluster are engaging for the first time in developing collaborative agendas. As a result of this enhanced competitiveness:
- Businesses are expanding; new firms spinning off;
- Export markets are being opened; market shares increased;
- New high value jobs being created;
- New technologies are being introduced;
Skilled migrants arriving, and New investment is being attracted.
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