Sharing experiences and practices across transnational regions
Objectives of questionnaire
Facilitation of transfer of knowledge, ideas, good practice and examples (WP1)
Sharing and dissemination of good practice (WP2)
Sharing marketing & promotion techniques (WP3)
Evidence of research and transnational working
3 themes
Benchmarking Cluster organisation and development Cluster promotion and marketing
Method
See document
BenchmarkingImpact of clusters for rural economy
Cluster working is important: Existance of
Strategic documents Data collection
BenchmarkingImpact of clusters for rural economy
Data collection All regions have one or
more systems One partner: 5 different
systems Quality is rather low
Possibilities for improvement (data collection)
BenchmarkingTypology of cluster groups
40 cluster groups in total Between 2 and 10 clusters per region Cluster working is a rather young
phenomenon 700 entrepreneurs are member of a cluster 23 of the 40 groups = a result of Collabor8 4 of the 8 partners started with clusters within
Collabor8
BenchmarkingTypology of cluster groups
0,00
50,00
100,00
150,00
200,00
250,00
300,00
350,00
Cultura
l
Creat
ive
Country
side
Recreat
ion
Hospita
lity
Loca
l Foo
d
Other
*
BenchmarkingTypology of cluster groups Collabor8 clusters (new clusters):
0,00% 20,00% 40,00% 60,00% 80,00% 100,00%
120,00%
1
Other*
Local Food
Hospitality
Recreation
Countryside
Creative
Cultural
Country sector is newSucces of ‘local food’ sector in clusters is decreasing
BenchmarkingTypology of cluster groups Theme or locality based:
22
14
2
Locality-based
Theme-based
Mixture of both
BenchmarkingStandards & awardsQuality and eco-labelling: About 50% of the entrepreneurs have a
standard or award
Cluster organisation & developmentOrganisation
13
8
12
Organisation of clusters: numbers of clusters
Bottom-up
Top-down
Mixture of both
Cluster organisation & developmentResults
Motivation of entrepreneurs to participate: Sharing experiences, knowledge, practices Sharing ideas on ‘sence of place’ Influence, lobbying strenght Reducing costs, increasing income Networking Increasing visitors in the region
Cluster organisation & developmentMonitoring
Monitoring of cluster-working is basic or absent
Only Merthyr Tydfil is working on qualitative issues
Monitoring economical value is totally absent
Some regions request good examples
Cluster organisation & developmentDifficulties
Trust in organising government Trust in the other entrepreneurs Time available of entrepreneurs Talking vs. direct action
Cluster organisation & developmentHow does it work?
A good Code of Practice is not yet very established Code of Practice
3
1317
Established
Under development
None
Cluster organisation & developmentHow does it work?Capacity of self-management: Involvement of official organisations is
important Capacity of self - management
14%
44%
42% Entirely self-managed
Partly self-managed
Requiring active support
Problem: trust in government is rather low
Cluster promotion & marketingStrategic organisation
Availability of a central policy: Strategic documents: only 3 regions have one,
3 under development Strategic support on attraction of visitors:
most of the regions have it, but only 43% is considered to be sufficient
Only 3 regions give/have strategic support on cluster promotion
Cluster promotion & marketingIn practice
Promotion & marketing of the region is important (vs. poor strategic organisation)
Adoption of a brand is less common (5 of 8) Use of the brand is connected to the use of
‘sence of place’
Cluster promotion & marketingMarket segmentation/new technologies
6 of 8 regions consider market segmentation important
6 of 8 regions use new technologies
ConclusionsMethodology: 3 questionnaires: interesting to see how
Collabor8 evolves
ConclusionsCluster-working: Working with clusters is important, but young Impact of Collabor8 on cluster-working is high:
23 of 40 clusters Availability of quality- and eco-awards is low, but
under development Hospitality is the most prolific sector, followed by
Local food and Recreation. Importance of Local food is decreasing
ConclusionsResults and difficulties of cluster working: Lack of good monitoring Lack of quantitative or qualitative figures Lack of confidence between entrepreneurs and
government Collabor8-partners are all governmental Only 14% of clusters = self managed
Thanks to: Sirka Lüdtke, Ghent University, for elaborating
the template Jan Van den Berghe, SPK, for handling the data
and making the report Andrew & Claire Gray, ERA 21, for feed-back You, for giving the data