Innovation in Clusters

1From Industrial Districts to Knowledge Valleys: the Legacy of the Cluster

Innovation clusters are often presented as a new concept marking a break with a past, where companies and laboratories were not grouped together geographically and encouraged to interact. However, when we take a closer look at the history of spatial concentrations of industrial and technological activities, we realize that their contemporary character is not limited to the 21st century. On the contrary, the first examples date back as far as the 19th century. Whether we are talking about purely theoretical concepts or existing configurations, two types of cluster ancestors can be identified: the purely industrial concentrations, that can still be found today, and those that attempt, as early as the middle of the 20th century, to bring science and industry together within technological clusters.

1.1. The industrial district: the oldest ancestor of the cluster

Contemporary literature on innovation clusters often mentions that they were inspired by the industrial district, a concept dating back to the 19th century, the most significant examples of which emerged in 20th-century Italy.

1.1.1. The economic approach of industrial atmosphere

It is interesting to trace the history of the cluster back to the British economist Alfred Marshall, one of the fathers of the neoclassical economics. He developed the concept of the industrial district in one of his reference works, Principle of Economics, published in ...