Nowadays, policy makers in charge of designing innovation policies, especially at the regional level, are more and more looking at the cluster approach either with a view to accelerate the existing clusters or for providing the basis for the emergence of new ones. In fact, not only as a...

This paper examines regional effects of the InnoRegio program, which was conducted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The InnoRegio program has been a new tool of innovation policy with the aim to improve innovativeness in East Germany on the basis of prosperous regional...

In the last two decades hundreds of cluster initiatives have been launched involving virtually all regions of the world and their number is growing. Cluster initiatives are viewed as conscious actions taken by various actors to create or strengthen clusters. There are multiple relevant actors,...

Cluster policy has become a method of choice for policymakers in many countries. Promoting strong localized industries is an appealing perspective for practitioners, as it can be seen as a way to anchor economic activity in regions in an era of globalization. If cluster policy is successful, it...

In the US and Europe many clusters initiatives have recently been launched. National and regional governments have been defining and implementing clusters policies and programmes with the aim to identifying, launching and finally consolidating international competitive clusters in their...

Clusters and cluster policy has become a widespread phenomena. The general thought shows that, somehow, clusters are directly related to business competitiveness and regional growth. In this context, the Spanish Ministry of Industry has implemented a cluster policy since 2007 known as the AEIs...