Found at: http://www.competitiveness.org/article/articleprint/70/-1/9/

Catalonia and Michael Porter launch a foundation to follow the competitiveness of clusters worldwide

The Prime Minister of the Catalan Government, Hon. Artur Mas, and Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard University, have announced the launch of an independent foundation to evaluate the competitiveness of regional economic clusters across the world. The foundation is based in the Valles Technology Park (Barcelona).

Antoni Subirą and Michael Porter.

The Board of Trustees overseeing the independence of the foundation is chaired by IESE Prof. Antoni Subirą, former Catalonia Minister of Industry (and Chair of TCI's Board of Advisors) and has Prof. Michael Porter as a permanent member. Other regional governments, particularly the members of the "Four Motors for Europe" group (Rhone-Alps, Baden-Württemberg, Lombardy, and Wales) have already expressed firm interest in participating in this initiative, and will be represented on the Board of Trustees as commitments are made.

The foundation will generate objective, independent reports measuring the performance of regional clusters in terms of their progress over time and versus peers. These reports will help business leaders to better understand their clusters' competitive position, and will help government leaders to measure progress and prioritize cluster-specific policy choices.

Michael Porter during the press conference

Catalonia was one of the pioneers in applying Professor Porter's microeconomic and cluster-based approach to competitiveness. Starting in 1991, more than 25 cluster initiatives were launched throughout Catalonia. Catalonia's experience has been a helpful guide to other regions of Spain, as well as to regions across Europe, and has been featured in case studies of leading business schools such as Harvard and IESE. With the launch of the new foundation, Catalonia will become another source of learning about clusters that will be available to clusters and regions around the world.

Information on Professor Porter and his work is available on www.isc.hbs.edu.