The pioneering spirit of clusters

José Luis Zapatero’s Socialist government began to incorporate regional clusters into its technological and scientific policy in 2006, with a programme to identify and officially sanction (with targeted financial backing) agrupaciones empresariales innovadoras or groups of innovative companies. The central government’s aim is to strengthen innovation and competitiveness, especially within SMEs, whilst improving its working relationship with regional governments, which have exclusive competence with respect to microeconomic policy and keep their hands on the clusters.
Most autonomous communities have initiated programmes aimed at locating competitiveness clusters and supporting their development. The pioneering, ambitious Catalonia, Basque Country and Valencian Community have been at the forefront since the early 1990s. Although not all the country’s regions have backed up their initiatives with structured plans over the long term, certain principles provide a rough guide to Spain’s cluster policy.

Export leverage
The policy’s cornerstones involve supporting economic networks (including intercluster cooperation) and encouraging interaction between organizations such as research institutes, training centres and companies. The Valencian Community has even brought banks into the projects of certain clusters (footwear, toys, nougat, etc.). Project appraisal, cluster identification and strategic analysis (markets and technologies) within different economic environments are widespread procedures. For most Iberian regions, competitiveness clusters constitute a key instrument in their regional development policies. They are used to leverage export growth and as a marketing tool to attract foreign direct investment. Examples are Galicia, with its automotive cluster, and Barcelona with its biotechnology and nanotechnology clusters.
Although regional governments’ involvement in cluster governance also provides them with an irreplaceable source of ingredients for the orientation of their industrial, global and sectoral policies, the autonomous communities confine themselves to playing an incentive and promotional role. The participating companies, organized into associations, determine by consensus cluster strategies and programmes.
But company cooperation within competitiveness clusters is neither easier nor more spontaneous in Spain than elsewhere. The pooling of resources between rival businesses requires a climate of confidence and serious guarantees, which is a daily task for firms and regional governments. Finally, Spanish clusters may have proved their worth, but this does not provide total protection against delocalization.