Emerging industries and interregional cooperation

The development of emerging industries is often driven by cross-cutting technologies, creativity and service innovation, and societal challenges such as the need for eco-innovative and resource-efficient solutions. As emerging industries are frequently characterised by high growth rates and further market potential, they hold the key to future competitiveness and prosperity. Their development can particularly benefit from the collaborative opportunities provided by clustering.

There are a number of initiatives at EU level that support clusters in the emerging industries:

On-going initiatives (click on the button for details):

INNOSUP

• This action started in 2015 with a budget of €24.9 million. As a result of the 2015 call , six INNOSUP-1-2015 projects received funding. The 2016 call  has a budget of €15 million and 3 projects were funded, while in the call for 2017 four projects were selected, representing a total budget of €19.3 million.

ESCP S3

• The Call for the expression of interest "Towards European Strategic Cluster Partnerships for smart specialisation investments"  was launched to mobilise cluster partnerships with the goal to strengthen the industry participation and the European dimension in the implementation of national and regional smart specialisation strategies.

Previous initiatives:

• During 2014-2016 six projects  for  “Clusters and Entrepreneurship in support of Emerging Industries” (presented here) were funded following the  CIP 2013 call for proposals;
• two 'European Creative Districts' (2013-2015) funded as pilot actions by the European Parliament. Results and outputs of the two European Creative Districts can be found at the following links: Wallonia European Creative District and CREATE European Creative District ;
• the European Creative Industries Alliance and the European Mobile and Mobility Industries Alliance. These initiatives were bringing together policy stakeholders and practitioners to test new policy tools and instruments in emerging industries. They comprised a policy learning platform and concrete actions for better business support, access to finance, cluster excellence and cooperation;
• a public consultation on the 'Experience economy as an emerging industry' carried out in 2013 which followed up on the announcement made in the Communication, 'Promoting cultural and creative sectors for growth and jobs in the EU';
• signpost to information, mapping and analysis on the potential of service innovation and policies to unlock it for fostering the development of emerging industries under the web pages of the European Service Innovation Centre (ESIC) and through the published Smart Guide to Service Innovation.