Les pôles de compétitivité : un nouvel instrument de la politique industrielle de la Wallonie

Over the last ten years, we assisted to the emergence of cluster policies across the world. As clusters are spatial agglomerations of co-located industries and services, the regional dimension plays a prominent role in the fine tuning of new industrial policies implemented by the European countries and the European Commission. In 2005, Wallonia launched a new industrial policy centered on the creation of competiveness clusters (poles of competitiveness). The objective was to put together companies, research centres and educational institutions in order to stimulate the creation of new wealth and jobs through the financing of innovative projects. So far, the development of six poles is sustained by the Walloon authorities through the implementation of what it is known as the Marshall and 2.Green Marshall Plans. The selection of the poles was based on a mix process combining the bottom-up and top-down approaches. The aim of the paper is to describe the procedure implemented by Walloon authorities and to discuss the European positioning of Walloon poles.