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French government to promote the competitiveness clusters. It is expressed by
providing financial assistance and the implementation of policy measures. The
success of the cluster also depends on the capacity of the enterprises to collaborate
with each other and with research institutes. In order to create a solid ecosystem of
innovation in the competitiveness clusters, the French government has to gradually
reduce the financial assistance provided and improve their involvement in the
development of capacity to run the cluster as well as in facilitating international
cooperation in innovation.
6 Conclusion
The competitiveness clusters initiative is a policy instrument to promote national
competitiveness by supporting R&D activities. The second evaluation report of the
competitiveness clusters confirmed that the competitiveness cluster policy has
continued to develop and accelerate a dynamic to cooperate around an innovation
project in all sectors of industrial activities. The competitiveness clusters are
attracting more and more members. This dynamic of cooperation is basically
developed around subsidized collaborative R&D projects. During the second
phase, from 2008 to 2011, the government allocated €2.7 billion to support almost
900 collaborative projects which have produced more than 2,500 innovation
projects that have been commercialized.
The competitiveness clusters initiative is one of the numerous programs and
measures to boost cooperation between SMEs and public research organizations. It
was reported that almost 70 % of public research institutions which are members
of the competitiveness clusters have establish R&D cooperation with SMEs
(Bearing Point, Erdyn and Technopolis
2012
). However, for SMEs, the develop-
ment of collaborative relationships with research laboratories requires consider-
able investment in terms of time and skilled human resources. On the other hand,
taking into consideration the difficulties that SMEs face to invest in R&D, research
laboratories often prefer to work with big enterprises. The competitiveness clusters
needs to find a sustainable model to facilitate cooperation among them, grounded
on a common interest and trust between the researchers and SMEs.
The competitiveness clusters initiated the creation of local innovation ecosys-
tems by providing an environment to the clusters' member to work and innovate
together on collaborative projects. The density of the innovation increases through
time. It seems that ''natural'' networks based on business opportunities are
developing. In order to accelerate the maturity of the innovation networks, it is
better to gradually reduce the financial support on the collaborative R&D projects
and invest more on building the competitiveness clusters' the capacity of gover-
nance, strengthening national and international innovation networking and rein-
forcing innovation information system.
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