Sharing experiences and practices across transnational regions

Objectives of questionnaire  Facilitation of transfer of knowledge, ideas, good practice and examples (WP1)  Sharing and dissemination of good practice (WP2)  Sharing marketing & promotion techniques (WP3)  Evidence of research and transnational working

3 themes  Benchmarking  Cluster organisation and development  Cluster promotion and marketing

Method  See document

Benchmarking Impact of clusters for rural economy Cluster working is important:  Existance of  Strategic documents  Data collection

Benchmarking Impact of clusters for rural economy  Data collection  All regions have one or more systems  One partner: 5 different systems  Quality is rather low  Possibilities for improvement (data collection)

Benchmarking Typology of cluster groups  40 cluster groups in total  Between 2 and 10 clusters per region  Cluster working is a rather young phenomenon  700 entrepreneurs are member of a cluster  23 of the 40 groups = a result of Collabor8  4 of the 8 partners started with clusters within Collabor8

Benchmarking Typology of cluster groups

 Collabor8 clusters (new clusters):  Country sector is new  Succes of ‘local food’ sector in clusters is decreasing

Benchmarking Typology of cluster groups  Theme or locality based:

Benchmarking Standards & awards Quality and eco-labelling:  About 50% of the entrepreneurs have a standard or award

Cluster organisation & development Organisation

Cluster organisation & development Results Motivation of entrepreneurs to participate:  Sharing experiences, knowledge, practices  Sharing ideas on ‘sence of place’  Influence, lobbying strenght  Reducing costs, increasing income  Networking  Increasing visitors in the region

Cluster organisation & development Monitoring  Monitoring of cluster-working is basic or absent  Only Merthyr Tydfil is working on qualitative issues  Monitoring economical value is totally absent  Some regions request good examples

Cluster organisation & development Difficulties  Trust in organising government  Trust in the other entrepreneurs  Time available of entrepreneurs  Talking vs. direct action

Cluster organisation & development How does it work?  A good Code of Practice is not yet very established

Cluster organisation & development How does it work? Capacity of self-management:  Involvement of official organisations is important  Problem: trust in government is rather low

Cluster promotion & marketing Strategic organisation Availability of a central policy:  Strategic documents: only 3 regions have one, 3 under development  Strategic support on attraction of visitors: most of the regions have it, but only 43% is considered to be sufficient  Only 3 regions give/have strategic support on cluster promotion

Cluster promotion & marketing In practice  Promotion & marketing of the region is important (vs. poor strategic organisation)  Adoption of a brand is less common (5 of 8)  Use of the brand is connected to the use of ‘sence of place’

Cluster promotion & marketing Market segmentation/new technologies  6 of 8 regions consider market segmentation important  6 of 8 regions use new technologies

Conclusions Methodology:  3 questionnaires: interesting to see how Collabor8 evolves

Conclusions Cluster-working:  Working with clusters is important, but young  Impact of Collabor8 on cluster-working is high: 23 of 40 clusters  Availability of quality- and eco-awards is low, but under development  Hospitality is the most prolific sector, followed by Local food and Recreation. Importance of Local food is decreasing

Conclusions Results and difficulties of cluster working:  Lack of good monitoring  Lack of quantitative or qualitative figures  Lack of confidence between entrepreneurs and government  Collabor8-partners are all governmental  Only 14% of clusters = self managed

Thanks to:  Sirka Lüdtke, Ghent University, for elaborating the template  Jan Van den Berghe, SPK, for handling the data and making the report  Andrew & Claire Gray, ERA 21, for feed-back  You, for giving the data