Cluster Excellence Training for the ECRI consortium under EU’s COSME Program

Description of project

Within the framework of the EU funded COSME project ECRI, the four cluster organisations : Cluster Biotecnològic i Biomèdic de les Illes Balears (BIOIB), Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero (bioPmed), Fundacja Klaster Lifescience Krakow (KLSK) and Elliniki Enosi Biotechnologias Astiki Mi Kerdoskopiki Etairia (HBio) joined forces in a consortium and engaged Quercus Group to help them improve their cluster management skills and practices aiming for cluster excellence within a number of key topics.

The objective was to strengthen cluster management skills and knowledge to enable ECRI members to provide high quality services to their members.

Type of services provided

The assignment was carried out through a combination of 2 weeks of plenary training for the clusters followed by individual on-location consultancy with the management of each of the four clusters. The plenary trainings were based on a combination of theory, cases, tools and interactive sessions and exercises where each cluster organization worked with specific challenges of their individual clusters.

Quercus Group trained the clusters in the requested themes including;

  • Membership models how to create value for members, especially SMEs
  • Financial models for multi-stakeholder organizations
  • Operational models for multi-stakeholder engagement and management
  • Long term business models for cluster organizations/ member based organizations
  • International collaboration among multi-stakeholder platforms
  • Value chain analysis, local value system, global value system

Cluster Organization Management: Organizational structures, pattern identification, governance models, business models (sustainability of the cluster) and services (how to select the services offered by the cluster)

Project Management for Clusters: Project planning, project monitoring, project evaluation, resource efficiency in clusters, key enabling technologies

Innovation Management & Assessment: Innovation strategy, innovation organization and culture, innovation life-cycle management, innovation enabling factors

The subsequent 1:1 consultancies with each cluster in the markets were concentrated on addressing each individual cluster’s main challenges related to member recruitment, member services and overall business and member models for the cluster organizations.