In the Background Paper prepared by the European Commission in 2019 for H2020 Cluster facilitated projects, it stated that innovation activities are often concentrated in individual companies and that certain regions offer the right competences, skills and favourable conditions. At the same time, innovation and excellence are rarely achieved in isolation. Competences are spread across different sectors, value chains and geographical borders. These characteristics call for collaboration between, and integration of, different innovation actors across different sectors and regions.
CLIPPER has been chosen to present one of its stakeholders in the new webinar of Interreg Europe focusing on increasing SME competitiveness through cross-sectoral Inter-cluster cooperation.
After a presentation of the objectives of the CLIPPER project and results, the good practice of Neopolia was presented. Neopolia is a cluster, financed by Pays de la Loire Region.
Neopolia runs 5 business clusters (Aerospace, Rail, MRE, Marine and Oil & Gas) whose objective is to generate additional turnover for its members by working collaboratively. Since 2010, the impact of their collaborative work has been reflected in: 90 responses to Calls for Tender and 81.5 million euros turnover for 90 member companies.
Neopolia is, also, a member of the stakeholder group of Pays de la Loire Region, the Lead Partner of the CLIPPER project.
Among the lessons learnt, it shows that after 20 years of existence, Neopolia network is a relevant tool. It is still an active actor of the maritime sector in France. They have entered a new phase recently, and are enforcing new changes for the network to adapt to the evolution of market, the energy sector and the industrial challenges that the stakeholders face.
In the Region, the association is known in the cluster sector and the work of Pays de la Loire Region will be for Neopolia to be recognised in the whole region.
The CLIPPER project has shown that the Neopolia model is known, as well, on an international level.
The recording of the webinar is available online on the Interreg Europe’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch;
