"Establishing a cooperative platform that facilitates the promotion of entrepreneurial innovation through Connecting ENergy Clusters across Europe"
According to the Europe Cluster Observatory in its Cluster Memorandum: Clusters are critical drivers of 'open innovation', a key source of competitive advantages in the global economy. Innovation is heavily concentrated geographically, much more so than high prosperity or productivity. Clusters - regional concentrations of specialised companies and institutions connected through multiple linkages and spill-overs - provide an environment conducive to innovation. They enable 'open innovation', the creation and refinement of new ideas in networks of cooperating companies and institutions, and they lower the barriers for transforming new ideas into businesses.
What CENCE network has probed is that across Europe clusters have different origins and a diversity of perspectives, strategies and goals, and that their technical (product, market, technologies) and non-technical (resources management, social capital, creativity) characteristics are determined by multiple variables.
CENCE's goal has been to:
Support cooperation activities between participating Energy Clusters for establishing, at the EU level, a collaboration and learning platform that facilitates the promotion of entrepreneurial innovation through the exploitation of synergies, the exchange of knowledge, and the transfer of best practice.
The main results accomplished during CENCE's work have been:
Some of these written results will be available soon. Moreover, CENCE contributes to the innovation community, and particularly to the innovation agents in the European Energy sector, with a greater network of European Energy Clusters ready to maintain cooperation on practical initiatives of mutual interest.
What CENCE network has probed is that across Europe clusters have different origins and a diversity of perspectives, strategies and goals, and that their technical (product, market, technologies) and non-technical (resources management, social capital, creativity) characteristics are determined by multiple variables.
CENCE's goal has been to:
Support cooperation activities between participating Energy Clusters for establishing, at the EU level, a collaboration and learning platform that facilitates the promotion of entrepreneurial innovation through the exploitation of synergies, the exchange of knowledge, and the transfer of best practice.
The main results accomplished during CENCE's work have been:
- To know each other among European Energy Clusters, understanding different establishments and operatives, providing the basis for expanding the cooperation boundaries.
- To develop a new cooperative learning platform for exploiting synergies, exchanging experience and knowledge. This platform is open to energy clusters outside of CENCE.
- To practice networking: transfer of knowledge between participating clusters, enterprises, intermediate agents and interested organisations. CENCE has activated a calendar of workshops and events for interchanging relevant information across the European Energy community.
- To map Energy clusters across Europe and analyse success factors and barriers to innovation.
- The establishment of joint collaborative projects and sharing of successful practices between participant clusters.
- The provision of policy recommendations to facilitate the establishment and development of Energy Clusters throughout Europe.
- To develop a new cooperative learning platform for exploiting synergies, exchanging experience and knowledge. This platform is open to energy clusters outside of CENCE.
Some of these written results will be available soon. Moreover, CENCE contributes to the innovation community, and particularly to the innovation agents in the European Energy sector, with a greater network of European Energy Clusters ready to maintain cooperation on practical initiatives of mutual interest.
