An untapped knowledge source towards implementing smart specialization: The life cycle of clusters

Abstract

Much research confirms that the EU experience with cluster and cluster policy can substantively support the arduous implementation of Smart Specialization policies. However, the potential inputs that the study of cluster and cluster policies can provide in the way of Smart Specialization remained somehow under Investigated. This chapter focuses on one promising and innovative approach, to confront the challenges of S3 implementation, which is to investigate regions’ specialization potentials through the cluster-life-cycle (CLC) analysis. The evolutionary analysis of cluster’s development stages sheds light on how different phases of the CLC have a different role to inform S3-policy-making, and support the discovery of regions’ potentials to specialize. In so doing, the chapter offers an unprecedented conceptual model, systematizes clusters’ stage-specific features, and unveils the role played by each CLC stage.