The Cluster Initiative Greenbook

The CI process
A cluster initiative has an antecedence, or legacy, and once initiated, it evolves.
The origins of a CI might relate back to a project, an IFC or another industry
organisation. Sometimes a purely government-driven program evolves into a CI. In
other cases cluster participants have set up joint activities and the CI is formed when
government moves in. This was the case with the Aerospace Components Manufacturers
(ACM) CI in Connecticut where a new state cluster development program was
launched in 1999 and ACM was selected as one of the CIs. It is also the case in many
European nations that industry partnerships were later selected and financed by governmental
authorities. The Norwegian aluminium cluster, for example, set up an education
project, which was later chosen as a CI (Lettmetall/TOTAL) and a new range
of objectives developed.
To get a deeper understanding of how CIs are set up and evolve, our model focuses
on six dimensions:
Setting
Objectives
Process
Performance
• Initiation and planning
• Governance and financing
• Scope of membership
• Resources and facilitator
• Framework and consensus
• Momentum
Initiation and planning
Cluster initiatives begin in different ways. Often there is one person who takes the lead
– a “clusterpreneur.” He or she typically has a background in the cluster. If the initiative
comes from government, it is often part of a process where organisations at different
levels (national, regional, local) are involved. In both the cases of Mat fra Trøndelag
(food cluster initiative in the Trondheim region) and Lettmetall/TOTAL (aluminium
cluster initiative in the Raufoss region) in Norway, a regional policy organisation took
the lead, since clusters were not being considered a the national policy level. In the food
cluster initiative, where there was no history of an industry initiative, it took quite some
time for industry participants to commit to the project. The opposite was experienced
in the Fuel Cells Canada case where industry took the lead role and had difficulties
involving government.
In the Medilink East initiative around Cambridge-Essex (medical instruments), the
initiative came from one industry leader who decided to franchise the Medilink concept
from the Yorkshire-Humberside region.
Governance and financing
CIs are governed in various ways. Some CIs are more government-driven and others
more industry-driven. Furthermore, local and regional government can be more or
less involved. In many developing and transition economies international organisations
play a role. Some CIs move from government and industry seed money to membership
fees as the main source of financing. There seems to be a general tendency of
membership fees being a more common source of financing in the U.S. than in Europe
or elsewhere.
Scope of membership
The scope of a CI defines who can be a member of the initiative. Scope relates both
to geographic area, stage in the value chain (competitor, supplier, customer), domestic
The Cluster Initiative Greenbook • 29