Clusters and competitiveness - PRO INNO Europe

Sincethesenewpoliciesarestillintheirinfancy,theirpossibleimpactontheinnovativeness
and competitiveness of the Italian enterprises and localities of industry cannot be predicted.
Moreover, the extent of their success will depend on the way these policies will be designed
and implemented within the framework of the current industrial and innovation policies.
However, oneparticularelementsuggeststhattheymightprovesuccessfulinpromoting
innovation.Thisreferstothefactthatthenewunitsofpolicy-makingfocusontechnologies
and networks rather than on sectors and territorial boundaries. Following a large body of
literature, these are the building blocs of innovative systems.
6. Concluding remarks
The concise discussion on industrial policies for innovation and local development in
Italy presentedhereshowsthatthesepolicieshaveplayedacontroversialrole.Atafirst
stage, with the promotion of industrial districts, the Italian policy-maker has introduced
potential discontinuities in established policy practices, recognizing the relevance of
new system-basedunitsofpolicy,andintegratingintonationalframeworksnewtools
andmodelsofintervention that had been previously experimented at local levels. These
interventions havebeenquiteinnovativeandtheyhavesomehowanticipatedmostof
the elements that characterize the current framework of European cluster policies and
regional innovation systems. However, as noted earlier, the implementation has been
driven in various ways by the local agents and by (the most active) regions, while national
design and coordination have remained in the backdrop.
The current scenario entails a new challenge for industrial policy. In particular, the
adoption of system-based approaches requires new forms of collaboration among the
different levelsofpolicymaking,aswellasthemobilizationofastrategiccapacity.
Asforthefirstpoint,ithastoberecalledthat,thankstoaprocessofinstitutional
learning that has involved the European Union and the European regions, during the
last decade the regional policy-makers have experimented a large variety of systembasedpolicytoolsforthepromotionofinnovationandlocaldevelopment.Theresults
oftheseinterventionsneedtobecarefullyevaluated,inordertoidentifysuccessful
experiences that may be fruitfully strengthened by the joint support of regional,
national and European policy-makers. The collaboration between the national and the
regional policy-makersisrequired,asthenewpolicytools,suchasthetechnological
districts or the innovative networks, often target high-tech sectors, where national
public research organizations play a fundamental role. Furthermore, the local context
hosts the basic nuclei of competencies upon which these systems may develop, and
the regionalpolicy-makersplayaleadingroleinthescoutingandinthepromotionof
the local experiences.
As for the second point, the new system-based innovation policies increasingly require
the implementation of strategic capacities from the side of the policy-makers. Successful
experiences show that local innovative systems often emerge thanks to a considerable
investment in public or private research activities, made by research organizations
or leading firms. Strategy is essential in order to target specific competencies and
124 CLUSTERS AND COMPETITIVENESS: THE CASE OF CATALONIA (1993-2010)