Latest news

Warsaw-Poland, 22-23 April 2008
INNO-LEARNING PLATFORM - A targeted action to support trans-national policy learning and policy cooperation on Innovation.
The event is organised by the European Commission, DG ENTR, under the framework of the INNO-Learning Platform initiative, in cooperation with the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PAED), the Mazowieckie Region and the Ministry of Economy of Poland.

Debrecen, Hungary. 24 April 2008
The main aim of the conference is to promote the advantages of intercompany cooperation within the industry. Organized by the IT Cluster of Észak-alföldi Region, the conference is entirely practical oriented, supplying the participants with real life examples of successful and unsuccessful cluster and partner initiatives.

A symposium on innovation policy
Brussels, 15-16 April 2008

Barcelona, 7 February 2008
The Urban Cluster Day in Barcelona is coming to its second edition. The very successful first conference in 2007 is promising an interesting repetition this year. 22@ is a close partner of TCI in Barcelona.

Developing Desert Directions: Rethinking the Future
Alice Springs-Australia, 3–6 November 2008

There is a call for proposal ongoing about evaluating the German "Spitzencluster Wettbewerb" organized by the BMBF - the selection of up to 15 clusters among applying clusters in Germany to receive for financial support of up to €600m. The first round of candidates have just entered the final selection process.

Article by Alonso Ramos Vaca, TCI Director
The 3rd Latin American Cluster Conference, 3CLAC, took place in Chihuahua, Mexico, the last week of May 2008. It was an event that fully met its objectives of advancing the cluster agenda in Latin America by promoting closer ties among cluster practitioners in the region as well as by facilitating an open exchange of experiences, results and methodologies. There were over 150 participants from 17 countries and over 55 presentations.

This international study grew from the TCI 2007 Annual Conference in Portland-USA, and shows the benefit of cluster practitioners getting together, agreeing to work together and moving knowledge of clusters forward.

Erica Elk, Director at the Cape Craft and Design Institute in South Africa has been one of the participants of the Pan African Competitiveness Forum in Addis Ababa in April and allows us to share her reflections on the Forum. This article was part of a monthly newsletter from the Western Cape Craft Initiative.

Article by Arthur Bayhan, member of TCI Board of Directors
Globalisation is a reality that countries in the Middle East can no longer escape and competitiveness is the only way to benefit from globalization and not become its victim.