Enhancing Framework Conditions for an effective Transnational Cluster Cooperation in Central European Countries 
Innovation is a crucial driving force for economic growth, relevant to every economic sector. Europe needs to improve its performance in innovation to sustain a high and rising standard of living. The key building stones of the European economic edifice are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), reinforcing their innovation capacity is thus crucial to guarantee competitiveness and sustainable growth. Clusters of SMEs therefore need to cooperate on a larger, transnational level to bring forth new products, services and concepts that are competitive on EU & global level.

These considerations brought about the idea of a cluster conference in May 2009, organised by partnership behind ClusterCOOP, where the Visegrad 4(Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) discussed strategies for enhanced cooperation with the participation of policy level representatives, clusters & experts.

Creating and enhancing framework conditions for the effective cross-regional and cross-border cooperation of clusters in Central Europe requires joint actions by the policy makers. In many cases, the regulatory level is exactly the area which CE cluster experts see as the major bottleneck for successful cluster cooperation. Partner countries/regions identified similar challenges regarding transnational, inter-cluster cooperation. First of all there are little or no synergies among national/regional cluster policies, and also the current framework does not solicit any kind of cooperation.

These problem areas are calling for a joint action in order to solve the problems, not only in the V4 countries but in the whole of Central Europe. Therefore a project was initiated to form transnational partnership to work together in finding solutions and tools to enhance inter-cluster cooperation and through this, strengthen the position of the CE Region in the EEA. 