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Initiation of the Northern Clustering Alliance

A meeting was held recently in Silverskär, Åland, Finland to address the national initiatives of the recently formed Northern Clustering Alliance. The network is driven by the needs for competitiveness and innovation; the demand for tailored micro economic policies including cluster development will increase sharply in the Baltic Sea Region.

During the first evening in Silverskär the expectations of the group of twenty-eight were identified. These centred on two areas:

• The sharing of experiences across borders, and
• Identifying early areas for Northern collaboration.

Each group was asked to identify central success factors in building a cluster initiative and identified issues such as realistic expectation analysis, opportunities and competence focus, the balancing of national and functional regions and also the nurturing of well established and the emergent areas, finding the right people to create sustainability and linking up to other clusters internationally. The results of this meeting as well as the direction and future plans of this alliance will be discussed during the Miniforum on 'The Baltic Sea Region Initiative' at the Ottawa conference. For more details on the program and on how to register for the conference please visit the conference website.

The second half of the event looked at opportunities for collaboration within the northern dimension. For this second stage of the workshop new groupings were configured: participants with common interests were grouped covering government/policy representatives, cluster facilitators, consultants, and academia. A "waterfall conversation" process was used, with each group holding a round table conversation that was listened to by the other groups. The main topics dealt with: Linking clusters, Linking facilitators, Facilitator training, Benchmarking, Extending beyond the Northern dimension and Common areas for research.

Finally in a third session, workshop participants were invited to develop initial collaborative projects. The format was open plan, with participants invited to move freely around the room to participate in conversations and potential projects of interest to them. Three initial projects emerged that received broad approval from the workshop participants.

• Training programme-workshop focusing on process support
• Creation of sector-based arenas
• Cluster Information Points (CIP)

Thereafter, two other concepts were introduced, which will be developed at a later stage. The first focused on 'Building a Northern dimension to Intellectual Capital on cluster development, innovation and growth', with a special emphasis on policy development. The second also discussed policy development in the context of "Baltic Development Forum Focus on Competitiveness and innovation".

The alliance will have the potential to deeply impact and develop opportunities for the region consisting of more than 120 million inhabitants (also including Norway and Iceland - the Northern dimension). For more information contact: Lars Eklund, leklund @ competitiveness.org .