To continue started iniative under ESCP-S3 DIGICLUSTERS, partners have prepared Strategy and plan for partnership development and sustaining. DIGICLUSTERS long-term cooperation agenda, strategy and the plan for partnership development and sustaining includes objectives, joint tasks, activities and tools to be used for work on building and sustaining partnership. The plan also includes anticipated local, regional or European funding programmes, which can be used to support future activities and plan how the partnership will evolve beyond the lifetime of the funded project, cooperating with local, regional or national public authorities.

The joint tasks regarding the elaboration and implementation of the Strategy are set the following:

• To set common vision and strategy for the next four years, taking into account the EU 2014-2020 and EU 2021-2027 perspective;
• To set goals to be achieved at global (4 years) and annual (1 year) perspective
• To share tasks and responsibilities between project partners
• To execute concrete activities that will lead to the achievement of partnership goals and strategy
• To monitor the strategy implementation and track its results by organization of peer-reviews

In order to speed up industrial modernization and mobilise interregional collaboration and investments, DIGICLUSTERS partners committed to jointly develop new activities to create new business and collaboration opportunities and foster business-to-business (B2B), cluster-to-business (C2B), cluster-to-cluster (C2C) and cluster-to-regions (C2R) collaborations. They will work simultaneously on five interconnected axis related to innovations, internationalization, acceleration, cluster management and policy support:

• New project development (new proposals for cluster-facilitated cross-industry projects)
• Internationalization (cross-industry internationalization towards non-EU and EU countries)
• Acceleration @ DIGICLUSTERS Hub (cross-industry acceleration, digital experimentation programmes, DIH services)
• Cluster management & excellence (trainings to increase cluster management skills and competences)
• Policies support (participation in ongoing EU-funded projects related to policies design)

In order to generate more project and business opportunities for clusters and its members, project partners will continuously create new linkages and maintain cooperation with other ongoing ESCP, networks, clusters initiatives and platforms in accordance with the goals set in the Strategy.

Synergy is the driving force of the successful Strategy implementation to share DIGICLUSTERS results and enable new possibilities for partners, that can facilitate the capacity building for cluster organizations in the regions, facilitate the exchange of experiences and good practices with clusters and policy-makers from other regions and showcase their region’s ability to shape the agenda for the cluster community on a particular topic.

As horizontal axis, project partners will build synergies and continuously create new linkages and maintain cooperation with other ongoing and future European Strategic Cluster Partnerships (ESCP), complementary networks, clusters and EU-funded projects related to innovations, internationalization, acceleration with common branding slogan – digitalization is simple!

The collaboration will have symbiotic, collaborative and combined approach to generate multiplying effects and intercluster, intersectoral and interregional synergies for clusters, SMEs and other actors involved in innovation & territorial ecosystems. It will be instrumented by the implementation of tailor-made projects, joint services and actions financed by European Union funds, regional financing lines and private investments.