Description
Registration is open for the 2019 European Cluster Conference
Registration closed on 24 April 2019.
The European Cluster Conference on 14-16 May 2019 will take place at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, with more than 400 expected participants representing regional, national and EU policy-makers, cluster organisations, other SME intermediaries and business network organisations and other stakeholders. The event, which is organised by the European Commission in cooperation with the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, is now open for registration.
The event will be a unique chance to hear about recent and future priorities for cluster policies and developments to support a sustainable industrial modernisation and interregional cooperation, with the spotlight on building bridges among the different actors in the cluster community. The overarching theme of this year’s interactive, participatory conference will be “Connecting Ecosystems: Bridge. Inspire. Change.”, with more specific topics being digitalisation and skills gap, circular economy, shared value and social impact.
The conference programme will include high-level plenary sessions on the need for clusters of change, panel discussions on fostering strategic interregional collaboration and on linkages across European Commission cluster-related EU initiatives, and interactive sessions where participants will have the chance to share their experiences, best practices and challenges. The results from events organised across Europe will also be brought into the discussion as the conference is also the concluding event of the first edition of the EU Cluster Weeks.
There will be a pre-conference EU cluster matchmaking event on the morning of 14 May in collaboration with the European Cluster Collaboration Platform and the Enterprise Europe Network. The previous EU cluster matchmaking event was organised in conjunction with the European Cluster Conference in 2016, attracting 114 cluster organisations from 21 countries, representing more than 10 000 SMEs.
Moreover, it will be possible to contribute to the creation of the agenda of the event by applying to the call for ideas via the following link.
Last but not least, four Cluster Award winners will be announced during the conference dinner on the evening of 14 May: the EU Cluster Manager of the Year (awarded on the basis of participants’ votes after a pitch by the three shortlisted candidates), European Strategic Cluster Partnerships for going international (ESCP-4i) of the Year, European Strategic Cluster Partnerships for Smart Specialisation investments (ESCP-S3) of the Year, and the INNOSUP-1 Cluster Project of the Year. Make sure not to miss your chance to showcase your efforts and take home an award by applying here.
Make sure to register early for the European Cluster Conference here to have a chance to grab one of the 400 places.
We encourage you to visit the European Cluster Conference 2019 website for all information. For any enquiries, please contact info [at] eucluster2019.eu (info[at]eucluster2019[dot]eu).