ScanBalt Health Region on a Fast Track

ScanBalt Health Region (SBHR) is on the fast track and makes swift progress. First project activities will focus on the collaboration between health service providers and SMEs, public procurement practises and innovation in the health care systems.

A project consortium of 9 partners and 15 associated partners has been established. An overarching aim of the project activities is to provide better health care, reduce costs of the health care systems and promote regional economic development.

More information about this initiative here.

The European Cluster Excellence Initiative

Pro Inno Europe is funding a pan-European Cluster Excellence Initiative with the objective to bring together experienced leaders fromorganizations throughout Europe with the objective to share experiences and promote excellence of cluster management. The overall objective with the initiative is to develop quality indicators and peer-assessment procedures to improve cluster management practices.

Cluster-Excellence.eu will act as a central hub and gathering point for professionals and organizations in order to promote and share cluster management excellence and best practices.

The initiative was launched in October 2009, and will run for 36 months.

Philippines’ Seaweed Cluster Considers Expansion Pending Success

The Davao Seaweed Industry Cluster Team is considering expanding their seaweed production area  pending the success of a production pilot area.

More info

UK’s Humber Seafood Processing Cluster wins Cluster Mark Award

The Cluster Mark award was established in 2008 by  UK The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills with the intent to raise the profile of manufacturers involved in the best clusters and support international marketing of local strengths.

15 clusters from around the country was nominated, but Humber Seafood Processing Cluster took the top place as the best overall cluster based on its its exceptional entrepreneurial dynamism, innovation, skills base and level of internationalisation. Cluster Marks were also awarded to the North West Aerospace Cluster, North West Biomedical Cluster and the East of England Health Life Sciences Cluster.

More info

Toronto Region Well Positioned to Take Lead as North America’s Food Cluster

Around the world, and in particular in Europe regions have been successful in establishing and marketing industry clusters as a way to promote and grow their regions.

Although the concept of industry cluster is nothing new to North American economic development professionals, European policymakers seems to have a leg-up when it comes to create competitive advantages for their regional clusters by organizing the cluster stakeholders in member organizations, driven by a growth and marketing strategy executed by a central cluster management overseen by a Board of Directors.

Looking to create growth and return on investment, the cluster management is actively pursuing a growth strategy built on objectives similar to that of a business. This includes a market driven approach to determine focus and investment activities. The industry and the market opportunity in large set the agenda for the cluster.

The cluster is actively pursuing a marketing and branding strategy in order to assist their stakeholders as well as to attract inward investments. Within several industries a number of European clusters are actively competing to position themselves as the ‘go-to-cluster’ for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Within the European food industry, there are over a dozen clusters utilizing this strategy many just a cluster name or yet to be realized – but a handful are very successful and well recognized.

Clusters like Food Valley (Netherlands), Oresund Food (Sweden & Denmark) and Vitagora in France all enjoy international recognition and continue to attract foreign direct investments thanks to their active marketing efforts.

Should a non-European food company or R&D organization look to establish itself on the continent – there would be several well known clusters that would be the natural first point of consideration.

In North America the situation is different. Although there are many metropolitan areas that have a bolstering food industry, but no region has yet capitalized on the opportunity to organize a cluster and position themselves as the go-to region for food technology and innovation.In North America several regions has gained status as the go-to area for particular industries, in most cases mostly due the sheer volume and presence of the particular industry stakeholders. Examples can be Silicon Valley for IT, Houston for oil and gas. Los Angeles for entertainment, and more recent emerging areas as for instance New York and California for cleantech.

In the food industry, the situation is a bit different. Based on the initial definition of a cluster, pretty much every city in North America has a food cluster. There are industry, government and academia that interact, collaborate and compete in some degree. These can all be called food clusters – but is a result of coincidence rather than a cluster with a purpose.

There is an opportunity for the Greater Toronto Region to be the first mover within the food industry and position the region as the leading and go-to cluster for food innovation and food development.

Toronto based, Accelligent Management Group has recognized this opportunity, and in the fall of 2009, representatives from the company started meeting with key stakeholders in the greater Toronto region. After several months of lobbying towards local, regional and federal stakeholders – in large due to the interest in seeing the local economy benefit from this opportunity, there is now a project underway to further explore this opportunity.

There should not be a major lift to organize the already significant food industry in the Greater Toronto Area into a cluster with purpose. By doing so, the industry and its stakeholders will signalize to the world that the region has a leading industry and should be on top of the list for companies and organizations looking for a North American point of entry.

Building on the proven models and structure from Europe, the regional industry stakeholders need to address critical issues like organizational models, governance structure long and short-term goals.

The window of opportunity is closing, as there is an increasing interest in the concept of using cluster development as a tool to drive economic growth. Also, throughout North America several regions well positioned to pull the trigger on a Food Industry Cluster Initiative, and some have already have indicated the interest in building a food cluster.In the Greater Toronto Region, the non-profit organization TRRA (Toronto Region Research Alliance) has taken on the role as the “Clusterpreneur” to further explore and define the opportunity.

Canadian Federal Government Funds Dairy Research Cluster

Funding of $8.7 million is being provided by the federal government to help the dairy industry create a cluster of scientific and technical expertise to study the health benefits of dairy products and ways to improve animal productivity through health and breeding.

The funding includes up to $7.2 million under the Agri-Science Clusters initiative, with a $1.5 million contribution from the Canadian Dairy Commission and $121,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The funding will support the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s contribution of $3 million for the cluster.

The Government of Canada is also providing up to $995,000 in the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s Canadian Quality Milk (CQM) food safety system, which helps producers proactively strengthen on-farm food systems. This funding will help the DFC develop a national database (National Electronic Administration System – NEAS) to track on-farm audits and manage the validation and registration processes for the system.

Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster (CCC) Presented

Late last month, the organizers (clusterpreneurs) behind Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster (CCC) held a an event where they provided a presentation of the CCC concept.

The presentation, according to press statements, was attended by 110 representatives from the business community, researchers and promoters of trade and industry from Denmark and abroad. The one common denominator was that participants shared an interest in Cleantech as a development area and were interested in the role that Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster could play in future developments.

The official Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster kick-off will be help April 14th. It will involve all current participants – more than 500 businesses, organizations and knowledge institutions operating in the cleantech sector in Copenhagen and across Denmark.

The CCC is in part funded by EU Structural Fund Project, and has a budget of DKR 143 million (Half of the money comes from structural funds and the other half is sponsored by the partners themselves).

Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster

International Conference “Boosting Regional Competitiveness through Cluster Initiatives”

On 23 April 2010 the International Conference “Boosting Regional Competitiveness through Cluster Initiatives” will take place in Fribourg, Switzerland. More information here

New video series ”ON CLUSTERS” released by the European Cluster Observatory

The European Cluster Observatory has release a three-part video series addressing cluster development. The three presentations are given by Professor Örjan Sölvell from the Stockholm School of Economics and the topics are: Cluster Dynamics, Cluster Policy and Cluster Management. Enjoy the presentations here

Failed Cluster Effort

One of the important milestones in successfully developing and sustaining a cluster initiative is to identify and accomplish an early stage win or sense of accomplishment. This should in turn feed into the long term strategy of further engaging cluster stakeholders and (hopefully) feed into the excitement and growth of the cluster eco-system.

I came across an interesting piece of read describing how (in the author’s opinion) cluster efforts in Hungary have pretty much failed. According to the article, it seems like lack of a clear strategy and defined milestones greatly contributed to what is described as a failed effort. Read more: here