Clusters and Cities Network Programme - CLUSNET

The Clusnet – Clusters and Cities Network programme supported by the Interreg IVC programme.

The partnership consists of Manchester, Lyon, Leipzig, Budapest, Barcelona, Goteborg, Dortmund, Helsinki, Eindhoven and Munich, and facilitated by Eurocities and the Stockholm School of Economics. Led by Grande Lyon, France – nine workshops have been organised between June 2009 and the Summer of 2011.

Manchester (led by the Commission for the New Economy) held the first Clusnet workshop on 16-18th June 2009, attended by 40 delegates from both policy and industry. The case study emerged from the Manchester Independent Economic Review , the first independent economic review of a city-region. The Review provided strategic understanding of the Manchester city region’s economy to enable its policymakers to act to bring long-term sustainable economic growth. Manchester’s Clusnet workshop focused on the recommendations of one of the seven studies: innovation trade and connectivity, to ‘spread innovation networks across sector boundaries’. It utilised the digital, creative and new media sector and MediaCity:UK* as the focus.

Manchester’s participation in Clusnet allowed analysis and policy recommendations to be formed from the workshop These policy conclusions are now being taken forward / implemented to support businesses within the Manchester City Region.

The programme continues until the Summer of 2011 with visits to other partner cities with information set to be disseminated via the programme website.
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