Clusters and competitiveness - PRO INNO Europe

Acknowledgements
Verymanypeople,companiesandorganisationshavetakenpartintheCatalangovernment’s
competitiveness reinforcement initiatives at cluster level that have been carried out in
Catalonia over the last 16 years. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to them all.
However, here we would particularly like to acknowledge the valuable contribution made
by three of the world’s most important experts in this field: Professor Antoni Subirà, from the
Institute of Higher Business Studies (IESE), Professor Christian Ketels, from Harvard Business
School, and Professor Marco Bellandi, from the University of Florence. In his chapter, Antoni
Subirà explains his experience, during his time as Minister for Industry in the Government
of Catalonia, of introducing the concept of cluster to Catalonia as an instrument to improve
competitiveness, and in their chapters Christian Ketels and Marco Bellandi approach
this phenomenon from the two academic schools that have most extensively studied
economies of agglomeration.
Emiliano Duch, from Competitiveness, and Lluís Ramis, from Cluster Development, have
worked together with us for many years as specialised consultants in projects to support
competitiveness.
Jordi Fontrodona, head of the Studies Unit at the Observatory for Industrial Foresight, made
numerous valuable suggestions during the writing and editing of this work. Joan Martí,
manager of the Cluster Promotion Department at ACC1Ó, and Emma Vendrell, international
project manager at the Observatory for Industrial Insight, provided vital assistance in
producing two sections in the book: the competitiveness reinforcement initiative in the Baix
Llobregat taps sector and the participation of the Secretariat for Enterprise and Industry in
European projects related to cluster policy.
Finally, our colleagues at the Observatory for Industrial Foresight of the Secretariat for
Enterprise and Industry and at the Cluster Promotion Area of ACC1Ó have demonstrated
to us by their work that quality of human capital is the most important asset in the
departments devoted to cluster policy at the Department of Innovation, Universities and
Business. We are most grateful to them all.