European Cluster Excellence Initiative

The European Cluster Excellence Initiative (2009-2012) was a joint effort of 13 organisations from 9 countries representing leading clustering knowledge and experience in Europe both in terms of practice and policy development. Baltic Innovation Agency actively contributed to achieving the main outputs of ECEI: 1) A comprehensive training programme fostering excellence in cluster management, based mostly on case study methodology; 2) A quality labelling system for clusters, focused on continuous improvement and benchmarking with other clusters. After the end of ECEI Phase I, both dimensions became operational and widely recognised in the EU cluster community as well as in the context of various European Commission´s funding programmes. ECEI Phase II (2017-2019) focused on a process leading to an improved European Cluster Excellence Policy with a particular focus on a higher level of transparency, accountability and efficiency of the existing EU cluster benchmarking and quality labelling scheme. The project was a joint effort of 20 partners with a strong background in cluster development from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, France, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania and Spain.