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The Cluster Initiative Greenbook

Download the Greenbook free of charge.

After Michael Porter's seminal work on clusters and competitiveness published around 1990, cluster initiatives (CIs) have become a central feature of microeconomic policy around the world. CIs add a new dimension to traditional policy areas such as industrial policies, regional and SME policies, investment attraction policies, and science and innovation policies. Experimentation with new types of partnerships linking industry clusters-government-academia is now going on in developed, transition and developing countries around the world.

The Cluster Initiative Greenbook, prepared for the 6th Global TCI Conference and financed by VINNOVA, takes a closer look at CIs around the world, mainly in OECD countries. It is built on a unique data-set of over 250 cluster initiatives, derived from the 2003 edition of the Global Cluster Initiative Survey (GCIS) and a series of case studies. Introducing the Cluster Initiative Performance Model (CIPM), a model for describing and evaluating cluster initiatives, the Greenbook describes and analyses the setting in which CIs are formed, the objectives of the CIs, and the process by which CIs are formed and evolve over time. Further, the Greenbook highlights drivers of good performance.

The book reflects a shift in the policy discussion from whether a cluster initiative is useful to how it should be done. Depending on its unique context, each cluster initiative has to make a number of choices on how to organise and operate. This book presents systematic learnings that will help CI practitioners to make these choices in an informed way to become more successful.

Updated: 2005-05-16