Clusters and SMEs: a way to face globalisation?

The development of cooperation among companies and with university or research is probably the best way for SMEs to compete in an open economy.
Today in Europe, 39% of jobs and 55% of the total amount of wages are located in companies working in a cluster environment. This is why the EU and the member states encourage clustering and innovation through various policies. It has also be proven that SMEs working in a cluster initiative innovate faster than others and cluster organisations are forerunners in SMEs’ digitalisation.
After a short presentation of the French cluster landscape we will give some examples of best practices of SMEs development through clusters.

Data: April, 17, 2019 | From 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. - CEST

Relator: Mr. Alain Tubiana

Chairman, gnomon sas & Head of Master in Cluster Management, Strasbourg University, France

Alain Tubiana is an international expert and consultant on cluster management, working on collective intelligence topics for more than 20 years. He has worked 9 years as cluster manager in the Information Technology (IT) sector. In the past six years he conducted about 35 missions for cluster organisations as well as governments in France, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritius, Tunisia, Algeria, Comoros, Seychelles, Madagascar and French Overseas Territories, (New Caledonia, La Réunion and Mayotte). He works both on public policy design and cluster initiative support. He trained more than 90 cluster managers on site and through distance learning. He contributed to activate twelve cluster initiatives in various sectors like textile, automotive, IT, mechanics, creative industry, energy efficiency and agro-food. He developed several projects to facilitate the technology transfer from laboratories to companies and has a strong experience in business support for SMEs. He is member of the board of directors of France Clusters since 2010 and head of the French-German Master of Cluster Management at University of Strasbourg. He is benchmarking expert for ESCA, expert for the European Observatory on Clusters and Industrial Change (EOCIC) and lecturer at Kedge Business School - Marseille. Alain is also the founder of gnomon a consultancy company dedicated to cluster management and collaborative innovation.