The BRIGHT consortium has recently published a report on the innovation potential and development needs of four European clusters of excellence - Biocat, BioRegion of Catalonia in Spain, STUNS Life science in Sweden, Estonian Connected Health Cluster in Estonia, and Eurasanté in France.

The objective is to find ways of improving our management processes, create new trainings for our employees and design new support services to companies, based on insights from our respective ecosystems.

The research done has shown that all clusters are very much active in the smart specialisation strategy (S3) of their region and increase awareness about the potential linked to biotech, pharma and medtech opportunities in their region. There is however a need for more communication about the offer of services provided to fully extract the potential of the consortiums; many companies seem to not be aware of all the services provided.

Each cluster has its own specificities. While Eurasanté and Biocat are big organisations with many services, STUNS and CHealth have less resources but have adopted an agile way of working to fully answer to the regional needs especially concerning networking.

Surveying companies from our ecosystems about the current services we all offer has been an interesting learning experience. Sharing best practices on the type of services we all have in common, and which are the most appreciated by our ecosystems will help each improve our general offering, especially in networking, business development and financing support. Improving existing services is just as important as broadening the general offer. Some ideas of new services which stand out according to the surveys are Market Access, international networking, funding and dilutive financing counselling, digital marketing and digitalisation (use of digital tools, digital project management, more investment in AI and machine learning based technologies, telemedicine, health data management…). These insights about the best services, needs and gaps in the offering will support the designing of the new portfolio of services which will be developed by the BRIGHT consortium.

Another major part of this study is linked to the training of employees (upskilling and reskilling). Common needs have been identified such as:
• Technology and Innovation processes linked to digital transformation of the healthcare sector
• Communication strategy to better target audiences with qualitative and reliable information, attract more followers and keep existing followers
• Legal and Regulatory linked to the constant evolution of the regulatory aspects of the healthcare sector
• Project Management linked to the use of digital tools to keep track of projects and KPIs