Events

The prosperity of the European Union relies on its ability to provide SMEs and industry with a favourable business environment and customised support to unlock growth opportunities. Stimulating cross-sectoral cooperation and innovation as well as helping SMEs to access finance, new industrial value chains and to go international are seen as key drivers. The potential of clusters and cluster organisations, notably in emerging industries, need to be better exploited to achieve this objective. The question of how to do this and how to team up with others will be at the core of this conference.

This European Cluster Conference, organised by DG Enterprise, represents the fourth edition following on from previous successful events in Stockholm, Brussels and Vienna that took place in 2008, 2010 and 2012 respectively. The 2014 edition will address in particular the following questions:

- What cluster policies, measures and tools are needed to effectively boost SME growth and drive regional industrial change, in particular in emerging industries?

- What trends and challenges need to be considered to create a favourable cluster environment that helps SMEs to unlock new growth opportunities?

- What actions are needed for a new European cluster strategy to help regions and Member States to implement excellent cluster policies and tools?

Conference sessions will include plenary speeches, panel discussions and innovative participatory group discussions and priority setting by the audience. It will be an inspiring event not to be missed and ensure that the cluster community actively contributes to the design of excellent cluster policies and better SME support.

A pre-conference matchmaking session will also be organised for cluster managers and the conference evening dinner will include the interactive selection and award of the 2014 European Cluster Manager of the Year award.