The Clusters3 project partners met for the 6 Interregional Workshop in Belfast.
The project partners and stakeholders attended the “Powering Innovation and Building Capacity” conference organised by Invest Northern Ireland and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.
Opening the conference held at Titanic Belfast, Noel Lavery, Permanent Secretary at the Department for the Economy said: “It is widely recognised that being part of a cluster provides firms with competitive advantages including economies of scale, increased productivity and better innovation which individually they cannot obtain on their own.. ."
During the conference the participants had a chance to hear from Kristianne Paache and Line Magnussen from Innovation Norway Norwegian Innovation Clusters - a government supported cluster program. The program aims to trigger and enhance collaborative development activities in clusters.
One of the main Keynote speakers of the conference was Vincent Dugré, Vice President of Operations, Quebec Ground Transportation Cluster.
In the afternoon two panel discussions took place. The first one explored the roles that knowledge institutions can play in supporting clusters, whereas the other, with participation of cluster practitioners, concentrated on cluster capacity building and cluster manager competencies.
The conference ended with interactive workshop session: Developing a Cluster Capacity Canvas through co-creation and the application of design thinking and business model tools.
The next day the project partners took part in Interregional Workshop. 7 regions presented and exchanged their experiences on capacity and competence building for cluster management.
Merete Daniel Nielsen, Director of Cluster Execellence Denmark facilitated the second part of the workshop. Speaking about key lessons learned from Danish cluster journey, she gave a deeper insight into new design of clusters and cluster organisation.
Hajdú-Bihar County will host the next Interregional Learning Workshop in the autumn.
