Commission launches 24 European Strategic Cluster Partnerships to boost SME internationalisation

The European Commission has selected 24 ‘European Strategic Cluster Partnerships – Going International’ as a result of the COSME call ‘Cluster Go International’.

The 24 selected partnerships were represented at a partnering event for the cluster organisations involved, in Brussels on 8 March 2016. The partnerships include 15 projects co-funded by the European Commission, resulting from the call ‘Cluster Go International’ (COS-CLUSTER-2014-3-03), and 9 additional ‘voluntary’ partnerships that were on the reserve list of the call and have accepted to keep working on the joint cooperation agenda without direct co-funding from the Commission.

These partnerships were awarded the label of ‘European Strategic Cluster Partnership – Going International’. This commits the partners of each partnership to work on a joint cooperation agenda, where the aim is to support the internationalisation of their SME members towards third countries beyond Europe, and to contribute to boosting growth, jobs and investment in Europe.

In total, these European Strategic Cluster Partnerships (ESCP-4i) gather about 140 cluster organisations across 23 European countries from various industrial and cross-sectoral areas including health, aerospace, mobility and logistics, food, energy, marine and environment, materials, photonics, ICT, micro/nano-electronics, rail, construction and sports. The partnerships will be targeting cooperation with third countries' economies, of which the main ones include Brazil, China, India, Japan and USA. Together, they represent a potential to support more than 17,000 European SMEs in accessing global value chains and taking a leading position globally.

The successful co-funded cluster partnerships are:

• AdPack - Future Materials and Products for Advanced Smart Packaging.
• bioXclusters plus - European Strategic Cluster Partnership on Personalised Healthcare.
• EACP ABROAD - Activities and Businesses from Real Opportunities for Aerospace Developments (European Aerospace Cluster Partnership).
• ECCA - European Circular Construction Alliance.
• EnW - Energy in Water.
• EU4SPORTSCLUSTERALL – EU4Sports Clusters Alliance.
• LASER-GO – European Strategic Cluster Partnership in Photonics on Health.
• MobiGoln - Mobility Goes International.
• MOVE - Moving the Future.
• NATUREEF - Natural Resources Efficiency European Strategic Cluster Partnership.
• New Frontier in Food - New Frontiers for Emerging Industries in Food.
•   REINA PLUS - Renewable Energy Internationalisation European Strategic Cluster Partnership project for European SMEs.
• Silicon Europe Worldwide – European Semiconductor Cluster Internationalisation Project.
• SmartCityTech - Internationalisation of cross-domain Smart City Solutions powered by ICT.
• SPACE2ID - Space Clusters International Industrial Diversification.

9 of them will be active in the preparation phase (strand 1) aimed to prepare a joint internationalisation strategy and an implementation roadmap. 6 others will be active in the implementation phase (strand 2) aimed to develop and implement collaboration activities with international partners.

Other cluster partnerships labelled as ESCP-4i on a voluntary basis, but without direct funding from the Commission, are:

• 3BI - European Intercluster for Bioeconomy and Bio-based Innovation.
• CROSSCUT – European strategic Cluster Partnership on Sustainable Construction.
• DECISION - Delivering Cluster International Strategies into Overseas Networks.
• EU4FOOD - Global Alliance for the development of international food bio-based clusters.
• FoodPackLab - Photonics-Packaging Partnership for Food Innovation.
• GIVE - Green ICT development.
• PERES - Promoting European Railway Excellence Outside EU.
• SeaMICI - Seabed Mining Clusters for SMEs Internationalisation.
• WIINTECH 2020 - Worldwide Intercluster Initiative for New Materials and Processes focused on Clean Technologies.

More information

• More about the selected partnerships (table).
• Press release.
• The European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP).
• Follow the ECCP on Twitter: @Clusters_EU.
• Contact the ECCP team.