Sharing experiences and practices across transnational regions

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