Innovation in Clusters

4Networking Systems: Repeated but Hindered Initiatives

As soon as clusters begin to bring together more and more members, businesses or laboratories, their administrators think about ways to encourage synergies between them: seminars, workshops, calls for projects (for competitiveness clusters), afterworks, etc. Several formulas are tested so that entrepreneurs and researchers can meet and then develop collaborations. In the cluster studied, the networking system adopted follows much the same approach. It consists of bringing together workers from the site’s companies and laboratories around common themes or activities, outside working hours (lunch breaks are usually preferred) on a voluntary basis, and then waiting for spontaneous cooperation to emerge. In the example of Genopole, the system is deployed in three main ways: a policy of scientific administration through the organization of seminars and workshops, the pooling of equipment intended to be shared and the setting up of convivial and sporting activities.

4.1. Scientific and industrial administration: establishing a recurrent event

Although the scientific and industrial administration of the cluster has been a common theme throughout the history of the biocluster since its inception, it was only in 2012 that a real administration policy was implemented, including the recruitment of a person dedicated to its deployment.

4.1.1. The emergence of an intermediary figure: the cluster administrator

In 2011, a general meeting ...