Clusters as Enablers of Ecosystems: Ways to Engage Stakeholders Effectively
On 19 May, around 125 participants attended our 6th capacity-building webinar, most of them from European clusters. It featured thoughtful insights on the importance of engaging stakeholders for the cluster, as well as practical examples from a cluster manager and the experience of a research organisation involved in innovation ecosystems.
Marek Przeor from the European Commission’s DG GROW started the session, highlighting that clusters must know their members well, reach out to relevant ecosystem actors and use the ECCP platform to liaise with relevant stakeholders.
There were then presentations from three speakers. Dr Astrid Hintze, from Co-Learning Space for Hamburg’s Clusters, focussed on ‘Engaging cluster stakeholders in times of Covid-19’ based on the findings of her recent trend study. Then, Gus Verhaeghe from Flanders' Food discussed how to mobilise stakeholders for the smart specialisation of agrifood and showcased the Smart Sensor 4 Agrifood platform. Finally, Stephane Berghmans from the European University Association (EUA) reflected on how to engage stakeholders in innovation ecosystems from the university perspective.
Following the presentations, there was a lively panel discussion between the three speakers which looked at the key challenges clusters face when engaging stakeholders based on the feedback of webinar participants.
The recording of the webinar, the report and presentations can be found here.
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