Around 85 representatives of 70 innovation clusters and emerging cluster management organisations from the Eastern Partnership (EaP) joined an EU4Digital Facility capacity-building and networking event on 18 April 2024. The EU4Digital ICT Innovation stream gathered participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine for the special training event, which is part of EU4Digital’s new innovation clusters activity announced earlier in April.
The event introduced results of an EU clusters’ best practices analysis, and connected the EaP clusters’ executive managers with contacts from the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA), the Romanian Clusters Association, the Transilvania IT Cluster and the AgroTransilvania Cluster, which shared their experience in cluster management and its benchmarking.
During the training, Dr. Anna Pobol, EU4Digital ICT Innovation stream lead, emphasised the common challenges encountered by clusters, such as a lack of cluster-specific policies and support instruments, as well as scarce resources for cluster management organisations in Eastern partner countries, which limit EaP clusters’ development and their potential to contribute to the economic growth of the region.
EU4Digital’s analysis of top EU clusters shows that, despite their varied sizes and sectors, they share a growth strategy that begins with external or public financial support and evolves into a balanced model. Successful clusters involve members in governance and strategy, utilise external expertise to boost innovation, and tailor services to members’ needs, communicating their value effectively. Over time, services can expand to include branding and sustainability efforts. Clusters can also influence regional strategies and foster digital transformation among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), potentially transitioning into digital innovation hubs (DIHs).
Dr. Oliver Ziegler, Head of Government Relations and Senior Project Manager at ESCA, introduced a well-established European standard for cluster management best practices. He detailed the methodology for cluster benchmarking, which identifies strategic and operational gaps for cluster organisations and awards special Cluster Management Excellence quality labels based on performance. He also outlined the eligibility criteria for cluster benchmarking and explained ESCA’s role in advising governments on cluster policy.
During the ESCA benchmarking exercise, we really try to understand where you are, referring to a strong database and similar challenges and solutions of hundreds of other benchmarked cluster organisations across Europe, which helps to increase your performance.
Dr. Oliver Ziegler, ESCA
Prof. Dr. Felix Arion, General Manager at AgroTransilvania Cluster, an ESCA Gold Label EU Cluster from Romania, is a member of ESCA’s expert group on Gold labelling. He shared the inspirational story of growing a successful cluster within the agri-food sector. Mr. Arion emphasised that finding a common interest among farmers was critical in the initial stages, and how the power of cluster collaboration was gradually built as a result of proactive engagement into finding solutions for the industry’s challenges, applying such concepts as smart specialisation. Now, AgroTransilvania Cluster’s Gold label serves as a mark that conveys trust, helping it to get involved in impactful partnerships and projects.
Dr. Bianca Muntean, Co-Founder & CEO of Transilvania IT Cluster, another Gold Label EU Cluster from Romania, explained how the cluster’s service portfolio developed over time, helping to attract new members and leading to tenfold growth. She shared insights into how a thriving cluster can grow in a country even without a dedicated national cluster policy or funding.
It was up to us, the cluster managers, to find opportunities created by different international partnerships and projects. We managed to impact the policy papers and the cluster support recommendations at the EU level.
Dr. Bianca Muntean, Transilvania IT Cluster
Bianca Muntean and Felix Arion were joined by Daniel Cosnita, President of CLUSTERO, the Romanian cluster association and an ESCA benchmarking expert, in further guiding the event participants through essential aspects of cluster management and service packages. Dr. Muntean highlighted the need for strong leadership and skilled cluster managers during the initial phases of cluster development, to ensure clusters have the capacity to support members in digitalisation and innovation. Training budgets are essential as cluster management skills should evolve. Daniel Cosnita pointed out that financial challenges are common among clusters and emphasised the need for a resilient business model, even where public funding may be available. The speakers explained that clusters must develop financial independence and offer quality services, securing necessary funding to employ qualified staff. A well-thought out value proposition, a focused service portfolio aligned with member needs, and a properly developed strategy are critical.
A very important approach is to steadily create context for meeting your members and provide them the opportunity to meet each other as well as policy makers.
Dr. Bianca Muntean, Transilvania IT Cluster
Expanding expertise through external collaboration and policy-maker engagement is also beneficial. Governance, for example through a steering committee, plays a crucial role in setting strategic directions, and success hinges on involving stakeholders early in strategy development. Annual strategy reviews and clearly defined action plans with allocated budgets are what distinguish the top-performing clusters.
The difference between failure and success in clusters lies in how they define their strategic objectives and apply the participatory approach.
Daniel Cosnita, Romanian Cluster Association
Alexandre Yurchak, CEO of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance echoed the EU speakers, but shared that financial sustainability is even more difficult for a cluster in the EaP region, where, in the absence of public support, clusters are highly dependent on international projects and donors. While mature clusters may have strategies, the younger ones tend to operate more on an ad hoc basis, focusing on immediate project opportunities and adapting to the region’s high level of uncertainty.
The discussion underlined the need for EaP cluster organisations to obtain early-stage support in many aspects: mobilising cluster members; involving them in strategising; discovering their needs and building the relevant value propositions; identifying gaps in the value chains and filling them by matchmaking; training staff to provide high quality services, building international partnerships, and expanding their networks of experts.
EU4Digital invited the participants to share their cluster organisation achievements and needs. This information will help to promote best practices across the EaP region as well as identifying the major challenges and areas that require systemic support from regional authorities and donors.
The training workshop also introduced participants to an online survey with which existing and aspiring cluster management organisations can assess their own capacity to support innovation and digitalisation among their members, and to adjust their service palette by learning from outstanding EU clusters. The tool is designed to help EaP participants to prepare, free-of-charge, for the official ESCA Cluster Management Excellence quality labelling assessment.
What next?
Cluster organisations were invited to conduct a self-evaluation to identify areas for improvement. EU4Digital will summarise the results and share them with participants, authorities and donors, to support policy and aid measures. Under the EU4Digital innovation clusters initiative, the ICT Innovation stream will also assist clusters with promotion, action plans and — for a number of qualifying organisations — applications for the ESCA Bronze Label.
Further information
The cluster survey and training were organised by the ICT Innovation stream of the EU4Digital Facility — an EU–funded programme that aims to harmonise EaP and European Union digital markets. The ICT Innovation stream connects the EaP and EU innovation and start-up ecosystems, promoting networking, sharing EU best practices and tools with EaP stakeholders, supporting development of the EaP digital start-up ecosystem, and developing a framework and recommendations for innovation clusters in Eastern partner countries.
To find out more about EU4Digital ICT Innovation and Start-up Ecosystem activities, visit our ‘Explainers’ web content and view our short video ‘This is ICT Innovation’, available in our ‘Library’.
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Georgia
- Republic of Moldova
- Ukraine
- ICT innovation
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