Clusters and regional transformation: establishing actionable forward agendas

Cluster development initiatives across Europe, and globally, have been able to assist businesses in responding with urgency to the arrival of COVID-19. Resilient initiatives also pivot to other challenges, addressing equitable growth, the circular economy, digitalization, evolving technologies and markets. For the European Commission, clusters and their ecosystems matter. An approach to establishing a publicly supported cluster development programme is advanced, starting with shortlisting the regional clusters that merit co-funding. Cluster development organizations are introduced, with triple helix governance facilitating community credibility. Resilient organizations integrate a clutter of piecemeal support from government agencies and academic institutions. They facilitate change from agglomeration clumps to a co-opetition culture amongst businesses. Broad portfolios of needs-driven projects are the cluster initiatives’ engine room. Resilient initiatives focus on endogenous growth, with investment attraction as a fill in. Forward agendas include addressing wicked problems with mission-type collaboration. Public agencies are an initiator, and then a partner, in developing resilient clustering initiatives.