SECPhO participated at the kick-off launch event “Towards European Strategic Cluster Partnerships (ESCPs)” in Linz, Austria on May 16th, 2013. SECPhO presented the ESCP called “Photonics – Packaging Partnership for Food Innovation” within a consortium of 2 photonics clusters from Spain and south of France (SECPhO and Optitec), 2 food innovation clusters from Germany (foodRegio and Food Processing Initiative) and Catalan Packaging Cluster.
13 newly established partnerships were presented during the event. Moreover, event participants were introduced to specific future services and priorities for ESCPs within the year 2014-2020. This was done by the European Cluster Collaboration platform representatives and Reinhard Büscher and Christophe Guichard from Cluster and Support for SMEs unit in DG Enterprise and Industry.
The newly established ESCPs will receive a package of various services. Firstly, separate space at the clustercollaboration.eu platform will be assigned to every ESCP. This slot will be used as a workspace for introduction of initiative and interaction within and outside the consortium. Moreover, the selected ESCPs will have a priority to participate at different incoming and outgoing EU missions to third countries that correspond to industry area of a partnership (approx. 50% of available seats). Furthermore, the coming COSME project under CIP program will offer separate calls for further development and shaping of the established ESCPs. Finally, it was announced that within the Horizon2020 program there will be a new part of calls solely directed to European clusters. The newly selected ESCPs will have an advantage when applying to this program as well.
All the supporting information in detail will reach the ESCPs within the coming weeks. Afterwards, SECPhO and partners will plan and define future actions to further progress towards benefits to cluster members.
To conclude, the participation at one of ESCPs in EU is a big advantage to a cluster nowadays. Within the consortium SECPhO will be able to develop specific services and actions directed to its’ members through different, cross-sectorial areas within a long period of time. European Commission is promoting and projecting the future towards such cross-sectorial, international cluster partnerships. This will be a future of EU industry and a tool to compete with other big economies in the world.