Europe, Middle East & Africa

The Baltic Sea Initative - Enjoy the videos on the latest developments of the 11 nations competitiveness and innovation intitiative.

Baden-Württemberg in Germany enhances the development of its Open-Source-Cluster with a package of new initiatives. The MFG (Center of Competence for Media and IT) is the motor behind some of the measures taken. The aim is to create competitive advantages and employment through the use of open-source-software in research, the economy and administration.

The government of Ras Al Khaimah, one of the United Arab Emirates has signed a joint venture agreement with the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) in order to set up a Technology Innovation Centre.

German magazine Die Zeit published an article on clusters and cluster policies in its issue of January 27. The article gives a nice insight into the cluster world in Europe.

The United Arab Emirates has announced plans to create a 400 million dollar research and development park in Dubai. The park will be called DuBiotech and is a bid to embrace biotechnology as a tool for economic and social development.

The government of the Spanish autonomous region Cantabria puts in place a strategic plan and promotes the creation of an automobile cluster in the hope that it will raise the regional GDP by 8%.

On January 17th, Oman signed a long-term agreement with an United Arab Emirates based business group to set up the nation’s first iron and steel plant. The agreement marks a new era of industrial growth and the start of a metal cluster in Sohar, north west of Oman's capital Muscat. The UAE business group will set up one of the most modern iron and steel plants in a project totalling 750 million USD.

L'Università Cattolica di Milano nell'ambito dei progetti finanziati dal FSE, ha organizzato un corso intitolato "Le politiche innovative per lo svilupppo dei distretti", diretto da Mario Molteni. Nell'iniziativa sono coinvolti distretti industriali dell'America latina, in particolare Argentina, Brasile, Cile, Uruguay, Perù. Una delle finalità del programma è quello di creare collaborazioni tra distretti italiani e latinoamericani. Al progetto sta collaborando anche la Promos. Il Club collabora e patrocina l'iniziativa e il Presidente Paolo Terribile e/o il Segretario Italo Candoni parteciperanno all'inaugurazione del corso prevista per il giorno 24 febbraio a Milano.

Representatives of the public sector, universities and companies have started an initiative to make Dublin a centre for wireless technology. This Dublin Wireless Cluster Initiative's expert group includes CEOs, consultants and professors.

Five Bulgarian companies expressed their interest in becoming part of the automobile cluster in the Austrian province Styria (AC Styria). This became clear during a bilateral business forum held November 9.