Industrial Clusters in Biotechnology: Driving Forces, Development Processes and Management Practices

The ultimate aim of Cleverbio has been to build a normative model that incorporates:

• the preconditions for a cluster to grow (scientific base and/or industrial base, innovative financing, etc.);

• the driving forces for cluster growth and development, i.e. the key factors of development (new company creation, IP rules, acceptance of biotech products, services and infrastructures, etc.);

• best practices in cluster management (barrier removal, network creation, marketing, technology transfer, etc.).

The book also identifies different forms of cluster creation. In some cases clusters were born and grew spontaneously as a consequence of the original co-presence of the key success factors (spontaneous clusters); in other cases they were born of the actions of public actors (industry restructuring and industry development policies). Finally, in a few cases, the process of clustering started as a result of a combination of different original conditions (hybrid clusters).

Chapter 1: The Concept of Cluster and the Cleverbio Project (67 KB)