Pôles de compétitivitéCompetitiveness Clusters

Political issues

• French industry (esp. SMEs) mainly middle- to low-tech industry

• Weak link between research & industry

• Tendency to scatter public support

Competitiveness clusters

• « Pôles de compétitivité » are– clusters, – gathering firms, higher education centres and research units, – working on joint projects (mainly R&D&I projects),– with a dedicated governance body (non-profit organization) defining a

common strategy.

Timeline

• 2004: call for projects

• 2005 (& 2006): 71 projects are granted the “pôle de compétitivité” label

• 2008: evaluation

Selection criteria

• Creation of high value-added products

• International visibility, “critical mass”

• Governance & partnership

• Consistent economic development strategy

A 4-step selection procedure

• Ranking at the regional level– local government & local representative of the central government

• National analysis by central ministries

• “Independent expert group”

• Political decision

Map of the “pôles”

Some examples

• MINALOGIC (Grenoble): nanotechnologies, embedded software

• AXELERA (Lyon): environmentally friendly chemistry

• PLASTIPOLIS (Oyonnax): plastics processing

« POLE »Governance body

Firms

Research centers

Education institutions

Governance & oversight bodies

Oversight bodies

Central Gov’t

Local gov’t (“regions”,main cities, etc.)

Ministries &agencies

Localrepresentativesof central gov’t

Evaluation results

• “A promising policy”

• Too early yet to measure effect on employment or innovation

• Government service delivery is OK

• Improved knowledge-sharing between firms & research centres

• Improved knowledge-sharing between firms

Key factors of success

• A long-term policy

• Involvement of firms– Local authorities should help and support, but not decide and meddle

• No « one size fits all »!

• All local innovation services must be cluster-oriented

What about territories?

• “Pôle de compétitivité” are not based on territories but on networks

• They have “blurred” boundaries

• They must reach a critical mass (even on a niche market)

What about cohesion?

• “Pôle de compétitivité” are not limited to assets-rich territories (nor to high-tech)

• The number of clusters on a territory is a major asset

• Positive spill-over help convergence

Conclusion

• No opposition between “pôle de compétitivité” policy and territorial cohesion.

• Cohesion policy should facilitate spill-over, not hinder leaders’ development.

• Higher expectancy policy (with evaluation and sanction) gives better results.

www.competitivite.gouv.fr