Good practice:

Clusterland and COVID-19

1. Mobilizing for crisis response.
What we do ...
- Massive corona emergency packages by the Federal State (40+ bill€) and the State of Upper Austria (580 bill€)
- Clusterland gets a mandate for servicing the UA companies (not just cluster partners!)
- Setting up a task force of 50 pax helpline to serve “most” regional companies) more than 3,000 corporate contacts so far)
- Not just incoming but massively outgoing (active calls) to regional companies – great feedback
- Objective: help companies to obtain liquidity and gain access to government programs

2. Living with the pandemic.
Innovation in times of despair
- Setting up regional value chains for PPE and other med-tech-equipment
- Aligning regional suppliers and industries with demand by public authorities
- Setting up innovation projects meeting the regional demand of new “regional” demand

3. Igniting new growth.
What we are planning for ...
- Nothing less than contribute to the reconstruction of the regional economy/industry (a little like after WWII)
- Business model adjustment and industry transformation as key topics
- (International) competitiveness through collaborative innovation as core strategy (in close cooperation with our 11 research-institutions (650+ research staff)
- Aiming for 150+ cooperative innovations project p.a. (again)

Main Stakeholders: regional companies, government of Upper Austria

Massive corona emergency packages by the Federal State (40+ bill€) and the State of Upper Austria (580 bill€)
Task force of 50 pax helpline to serve “most” regional companies (more than 3,000 corporate contacts so far)

In times of despair there was a fast reaction to establish new production sectors. E.g. production of face shields/masks, desinfectants, software engineering (apps).

This crisis has shown, that for future development the location has to be more resilient through for example more investments in Upper Austrian areas of strengths/competences.

With regard to the environment (green deal). Further it is important for the region to foster innovation to process future development.

It is also important for policy makers to provide (financial) support/ professional expertise fast according to the current circumstances.