16th July 2015
Orkestra and SPRI-(Basque Business Development Agency)-Basque Government met this morning with the 11 cluster associations and the 11 pre-clusters of the Basque Country in order to discuss the future challenges of territorial cluster associations and cluster policies.
The goal of the meeting, held at the University of Deusto (Donostia-San Sebastián Campus) was to consider the role of cluster associations with regard to European and global trends in terms of clusters, cooperation networks and the rennovation planning of the cluster policy developed by the Basque Government and SPRI.
Iñaki Tellechea, head of Business Promotion at the SPRI Group, began the day's events by contextualising the matter at hand in the first session, that it is hoped will have continuity.
James Wilson, Mari Jose Aranguren and Aitziber Elola from Orkestra carried out a brief consideration on the future of political clusters, bearing in mind challenges such as: those raised by the smart specialisation strategy (RIS3); tied to innovation; or inter-company/inter-cluster collaboration. Additionally, they gave examples of cluster policies implemented on a European level that have been successful during this time. (Download the presentation).
Following, Txomin Olabarri, leader of the SPRI Group’s Cluster and Studies Organisation, gave a brief introduction, on the context of the Basque Country's cluster and pre-cluster associations, current cluster policies and the challenges posed in their renewal in order to adapt to the current needs.
The second part of the day, focused on carrying out group dynamics between the heads and representatives of the participant cluster associations, in order for them to work and reflect, in line with the first part of the session, on: the reasons why Basque clusters contribute value to the Basque Country's competitiveness; the critical challenges of Basque clusters in order to continue contributing value to the Basque Country's competitiveness and examples of how the Basque cluster boarders are changing in order to keep on contributing value to the region's competitiveness.
Within this context, and following the challenges raised by the RIS3, it is hoped that the SPRI Group, in conjunction with Orkestra, will hold the “First Annual Cluster Day” on 21st October. A day that will seek to continue the open reflection of today's session, linking it to smart specialisation strategies promoted in the Basque Country and whose diagnostics are collected in The Basque Country Competitiveness Report 2015 recently published by Orkestra.
