Orkestra, the Basque Institute of Competitiveness, has recently featured several articles on the effects of COVID-19 on the European economy. Their #Beyondcompetitiveness blog has been a useful source of information on the activities and status of European clusters in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak, social movements, industrial competitiveness, and policy implementation across Europe. As a platform solely launched to facilitate collaborative actions, such as knowledge-transfer, sharing of practical and effective theories and ideas as well as proposals of multi-faceted restorative actions in Europe, the blogs are written in many different European languages including English, French, and Spanish by experts from various fields of studies and specialisation. Some examples:

• Covid, Collaboration and Clusters by James Wilson
• Reflections on the Coronavirsu from the territories by Francisco Alburquerque
• Will the Coronacrisis lead to a turnaround in supply chain management by Bart Kamp

In the particular piece by James Wilson, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown of economic activities is examined in relation to disrupted structures and mechanisms of production for institutes of all proportions around the world. The need of organisations to find their own way to rebuild and adapt their activities is underlined, without disregarding the fast-changing economic environment that will require renewed forms of private-private, public-private, and public-public collaboration. This form of collaboration is to be realised through Industrial Clusters. Clusters are presented as essential parts for the recovery stage which will follow the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, Industrial Clusters and cluster organisations must play a central role in seizing this opportunity.

To visit Orkestra's blog and read more articles about Clusters and COVID-19, please click here.