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European Cluster Partnerships at the European Cluster Conference

Written by Jip Lenssen – Erasmus+ project officer

 

On 26 and 27 September, the 8th European Cluster Conference took place in Prague, Czechia. The conference was organised by the European Commission, the European Cluster Collaboration Platform and in cooperation with the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade on the occasion of the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The European Cluster Conference in Prague was held at a time of many common challenges. Still dealing with the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, the invasion of Ukraine brought to light various vulnerabilities of the European community. Such vulnerabilities include the digital and green transition, energy security and disruptions of the supply chain. The conference was a unique opportunity for stakeholders to discuss these challenges and the current state-of-the-art of cluster-related matters such as policy developments at EU and local levels.

European Custer Partnerships

Over 100 representatives of European Cluster Partnerships got together for the ECCP side event which encompassed an interactive session exchanging views and best practices on networks for resilience, innovation, new technologies, training/up-skilling and re-skilling, internationalisation and communication. For more information on the European Cluster Partnerships, please visit this webpage.

Specifically, the European Cluster Partnerships | Excellence strand was present at the main conference. These partnerships are a group of Cluster Organisations from the same Industrial Ecosystem to strengthen cluster management excellence. For more information about the various European Cluster Partnerships | Excellence please click here.

ClusterXchange Scheme

The European Cluster Partnerships | Excellence facilitate short-term exchanges through the ClusterXchange scheme which is a scheme to support short-term exchanges to better connect Europe’s industrial ecosystems. It aims to facilitate transnational cooperation, peer learning, networking and innovation between members of a specific cluster with similar or differing ecosystems. For more information about the ClusterXchange scheme please visit this webpage.

The new simplified ClusterXchange IT Tool, which is used to carry out the exchanges, was released on 20 September. EURADA, the organisation behind the ClusterXchange support office, was present at the European Cluster Conference, to answer questions that the partnerships might have. Furthermore, the scheme was introduced to conference participants who have not heard of it before. 

To familiarise the partnership administrators with the newly released IT Tool, a CXC IT Tool Training is being held on 6 October 2022 at 10:00 CET. Please visit clusterxchange(at)clustercollaboration.eu if you would be interested in participating in the training session.

For more information about the European Cluster Conference, or the European Cluster Collaboration activities in general, please feel free to contact European project Manager Jip Lenssen.