Cluster (economy)

Cluster ( English , German  grape, Swarm ) are in the economics of the anglicism for networks of producers , suppliers , research institutions (eg. As universities ), service providers (eg. As design and engineering ), craftsmen and related institutions (eg. B. chambers of commerce ) with a certain regional proximity to each other, which arise through mutual exchange relationships along a value chain (e.g. automobile production ) or which accumulate regionally due to common favorable location factors . The members are related to each other through supply or competitive relationships or common interests.

General

Economic clusters are networks of closely working companies - nowadays more and more in association with training institutions, universities or other competence centers . If there is cooperation within companies in a business park or industrial park, there are also clusters here.

Clusters arise primarily from the regional concentration of companies and other organizations that are linked by a common field of activity. The physical proximity of two or more similar companies creates externalities . One speaks of a cluster only when there is a certain (“critical”) number of companies in close proximity to one another whose activities complement one another along one or more value chains or are related to one another. Only under this condition - so the assumption - can a growth pole emerge that also attracts suppliers and specialized service providers and creates competitive advantages for all companies involved.

These competitive advantages are based on similarities, an improved division of labor and positive external effects between the companies and institutions in the cluster. Similarities exist e.g. B. in the common interest in locally available staff and their qualifications. An improved division of labor is possible by concentrating the individual companies on their core competencies in outsourcing secondary functions to suppliers. However, the extent of the implicit, competition-relevant knowledge that the actors have gathered together is assumed to be decisive for the increased innovative strength of a cluster. This knowledge is exchanged through informal contacts (the social capital of a cluster) and job changes and creates innovations. On the other hand, there may be disadvantages due to poaching and excessive transparency.

The manageability of the economic area , the spatial proximity and often personal knowledge of those involved enable a regional cluster to act quickly and efficiently with regard to regional needs. Many clusters have organized their own communication and coordination structures. The form of communication and coordination of clusters is described as between market and hierarchy. A crucial medium in this context is trust . The partnership in a cluster and network initiative offers a number of advantages, especially the possibility of networking that make new contacts. On information and communication platforms, partners can exchange information about developments and trends in the respective industries. They are also supported in the implementation of projects - through the search for suitable project partners, through support in the acquisition of funding and through advice during the implementation of the project. There are also tailor-made advanced training courses for the various subject areas. At events ranging from specialist events, study trips, exchange of experiences to workshops, partner companies of the cluster initiative can acquire specific know-how . Supporting the cluster and network teams through the realization of technology presentations, joint trade fair appearances and joint participation in funded projects can facilitate access to new markets.

Similar terms

Saxenian (1994) differentiates between innovative clusters of the Silicon Valley type and innovative milieus of the Route 128 type . While the former are shaped by young entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks with their "garage operations" who negotiate their deals with one another in an informal atmosphere, a long tradition of academic, state-funded and hierarchically organized basic research plays an important role in the success of the innovative region around Boston and Cambridge (Massachusetts) Role, whereby the roots of the company founding z. T. go back 150 years. These innovative, but at the same time conservative milieus with their lower interaction density and their less exciting lifestyle did not, of course, shape such interesting entrepreneurial role models as was the case on the west coast.

Related to the term cluster is that of the creative milieu . It describes a space-bound complex which, with its technology and market environment, is open to the outside and which integrates and masters know-how, rules, norms and values ​​as well as a “capital” of social relationships internally. The concept of the creative milieu was coined by the so-called GREMI group (“Groupe de Recherche Européen sur les Milieux Innovateurs”). Since 1984, this group of French sociologists and regional scientists has been researching the causes of the differences in the innovative ability and activity of different regions. The totality of the relationships in a milieu, integrated into the socio-cultural environment ( embeddedness ), should lead to a collective creative learning process. In addition to spatial proximity, the existence of shared values ​​and trust are a prerequisite for implementation. Among the theorists of the creation of creative milieus is u. a. Richard Florida .

Concept history

Economic clusters were already described by various directions in economics in the 19th century. a. by Alfred Marshall , who used the term industrial district for collections of companies with similar needs (raw materials, technology, workers) and who developed this concept into a location theory in his main work, Principles of Economics . The Cambridge School of Economics refined the concept by analyzing locations based on marginal utility theory .

PS Florence completed the concept by considering the externalities of metropolitan areas. He pointed first to the possibility of specialization and division of labor within industrial regions back: Regional integration is just a consequence of Des decomposed integration of the companies whose vertical processing chains and are divided into many small specialist companies. The modern cluster theory was worked out by the American scientist Michael E. Porter , who defined the cluster from a purely business point of view as the result of similar comparative location advantages of several companies in a region, which can serve as the basis for competitiveness in global markets. Porter makes a difference

• Factor conditions (e.g. specialized training and university research programs; infrastructure)
• Demand conditions (e.g. discerning customers pushing for the development of high-quality products)
• Supporting and related industries (e.g. information flow and contacts, cluster-specific suppliers and service providers)
• Strategy and competition (e.g. government investment or export promotion)

Paul Krugman supplemented the cluster theory with considerations related to transaction costs . He made a distinction between factors that promote concentration (“centripetal”) (size of the sales market, availability of qualified workers, etc.) and influencing factors that promote the dispersion of the companies (“centrifugal” factors such as high land prices as a result of strong competition, overuse of local production factors, but also decreasing transport and communication costs).

For a long time, the idea of ​​market-driven clusters dominated. As recently as 1998, the OECD strictly rejected the subsidization of clusters and state intervention. But since the mid-1990s, Germany and other countries have been promoting inter-company networking with the aim of creating clusters. Since around 2002 the possibility and necessity of public funding of clusters has been almost universally accepted in literature. This brought more specific aspects of the interaction and network structures within clusters and the evaluation of cluster policy to the fore of the scientific discussion.

In addition to the term cluster, which refers to the collection of companies themselves, the term cluster initiative is increasingly being used, which describes the institutional framework of the cluster and in which the development of common objectives and funding policy strategies takes place. The cluster initiatives are professionally moderated. B. are organized as registered associations, through economic development policy, chambers, associations or technology centers.

As before, the term cluster is subject to considerable uncertainty and includes very different conglomerates. The comparative cluster analysis also often neglects the different national framework conditions. This is indicated by Henry Rowen go when he states that the emergence of a cluster like Silicon Valley can be explained not only by local location factors; At that time it could not have emerged anywhere else than the USA, where a coherent system of favorable regulatory conditions, low taxes and formation costs, a lack of protectionism, freedom of research, liberal accounting and bankruptcy law provisions in conjunction with immigration rules existed, which was established by the Immigration Act of 1965 (so-called Hart-Celler-Act ) favored immigration exclusively of highly qualified people. This system can hardly be copied in Europe and explains the long-term competitive advantage of the USA in the IT sector. In 1990 about a third of the scientists and engineers in Silicon Valley came from Asia, mainly from China, India and Vietnam; the proportion has risen sharply until today.

criticism

While Porter's approach has long been criticized as eclectic, superficial and above all because of the paradox of the regionalization of innovation, the enthusiasm of politics for cluster initiatives precedes the theoretical understanding of how networks work today. It aroused desires for the feasibility of clusters and encouraged technocratic actionism and bureaucratic fantasies of omnipotence. Only a few picking winners - especially large companies - often benefit from this.

Many authors emphasize that the benefits of clusters from a regional economic point of view are offset by potentially high costs. Such disadvantages are seen as the consequences of over-specialization, institutional lock-in effects (e.g. the modernization of clusters made difficult as a result of the shared regional infrastructure, extensive and ongoing subsidization and high investments in existing technology) or the increase in labor, Cost of living and the environment as a result of access to the same but regionally only limited production factors. Due to the vagueness of the term cluster, almost every industry is now considered to be eligible for funding, without it being possible to prove that there is a market failure that requires government intervention. In addition, there is little empirical evidence for the success of government cluster funding.

An audit by the State Audit Office of Schleswig-Holstein has shown that none of the twelve networks funded by the State have been able to set up a financing structure that is independent of funding in the medium term, even for their own management costs. On average, the projects only had private funding of just under 20 percent, although most of them had already been extended once or twice. Some economic development institutions tried to finance their ongoing administrative expenses through changing cluster projects. The state's decisions on the selection and promotion of industry clusters based on a survey of a few trade fair visitors or just a Google search for the regional accumulation of keywords such as "logistics" were also criticized.

There are also indicators of a decreasing importance of regional branch clusters, not least as a result of globalization. Pure production clusters play an ever smaller role today, especially in high technology, which is characterized by the minimization of physical value creation in relation to knowledge production. It appears that the importance of homogeneous clusters is declining in the course of globalization , especially as a result of new communication and interaction structures (internet, social networks ) and greater mobility of employees and other market players . In addition to intra-regional communication relationships, the global forms of organization and interaction in the value chain are becoming increasingly important. In a European comparison, old industrial regions are now more clustered than dynamic growth regions. A very high degree of clustering have e.g. B. Latvia (metal, electrical and agricultural industry) and the old industrial regions in the United Kingdom, but also many emerging countries. Countries with a high innovation rate tend to have a medium (e.g. Germany) to low (e.g. Switzerland) share of clustered companies in the total number of companies. It is assumed that the increase in supra-regional interactions successfully prevents stagnation in regional innovation dynamics as a result of overly specialized and locally fixed companies. They are more specific and selective than multi-dimensional local communication (“global whistling” versus “local noise”).

This shows z. B. the extreme spatial displacement of the value chain of the iPhone . In this chain, most of the added value comes from development, design, marketing and management. It can be expected that the tactile advantages and innovation functions of the production clusters will in future largely be replaced by the more dynamic, because largely virtual, knowledge clusters. A problem for politicians is then to wind down highly subsidized clusters if necessary. Setbacks in cluster funding are also to be expected if these are not compatible with the “soft” location factors of a region or if the critical mass of companies or the necessary degree of innovation for successful cluster formation is not achieved.

Historically grown clusters

The royal residences of the 17th and 18th centuries (e.g. cabinet-making and handicrafts in Weimar ) were the early crystallization points of clusters of luxury goods production . Other clusters were created through the settlement of processing companies near natural resources (e.g. the area between Leoben and Steyr as the most important iron processing and ironware exporting zone of the Habsburg monarchy since 1600 or the more than 200 year old port wine cluster in Porto ).

One and the same industry was able to grow on the basis of very different location requirements. The availability of hydropower was an important locational requirement for the development of the cotton industry in Lancashire in the 18th century. Richard Arkwright's mechanical spinning machine from 1769, the Waterframe , was used there long before the James Watts steam engine ; Cotton processing in the arid Glasgow, on the other hand, relied on steam power from the start and thus on the creativity of precision mechanics. In the 19th century, the availability of coal for spinning and weaving became more and more important at both locations; Due to mechanization, qualified textile workers hardly played a role at both locations; for this, the importance of engineers grew, and mechanical engineering clusters developed.

Historically grown clusters in Germany are the mining industrial clusters in the Ruhr area and Saarland , which are in the process of being dissolved today and which were established around 250 years ago , the almost equally old historical settlement of device construction, precision mechanics and optics around the University of Göttingen , which still have a technological lead today Areas has preserved the concentration of the knitwear and tricot industry and textile machine construction in Württemberg , the machine tool and automotive industry in Baden-Württemberg , further z. B. the auto supplier industry in the Bergisches Land or the central German chemical triangle ; in Switzerland the watch industry cluster in the canton of Jura .

Many clusters have undergone decisive transformations and differentiations over the course of time: While initially simple units and constructions such as the steam engine offered various possible uses in numerous industries, specialized supplier clusters developed over time. On the basis of the large-scale industrial mining cluster of the Ruhr area, a specialized, predominantly medium-sized mining supplier cluster with a focus on the fields of shaft construction, mining machines, pumps, compressors, pipeline construction, hydraulics, locomotive and wagon construction (for mine railways) has been created since around 1870 and developed into a general engineering cluster . However, only a few larger companies exported their products worldwide; Above all, the smaller companies that emerged after the Second World War in the renewed coal boom often found their sales opportunities within a radius of only 50 km. As a result of the shrinking mining industry since the 1980s, they fell into crisis. In contrast, the foundries originally closely associated with the coal and steel industry have been increasingly integrated into the automotive industry's supply system since the 1980s.

Specialized clusters have also differentiated from the mechanical engineering cluster in Baden-Württemberg (e.g. the intralogistics cluster ). The clusters based on port management and shipping such as B. Bremen (processing of so-called colonial goods ) or Hamburg changed their structure more often depending on the change in the imported raw materials and the type of further processing as well as their connection to the hinterland.

In contrast to pure IT clusters, which can be built “out of the ground” around universities, clusters for the development and production of modern electronic devices often require decades of regional lead before they - sometimes suddenly - achieve international recognition. In the early 19th century, special know-how for the maintenance of water turbines for spinning mills developed on the upper part of Lake Zurich . In the 20th century, more and more electrical engineering specialists were employed here. In 1945 Erhard Mettler founded a factory for precision balances in Zurich , developed the first fully electronic balance in the 1970s and took over the American manufacturer Toledo in 1989. Today Mettler-Toledo is the world market leader for precision measuring devices in weighing and dosing technology. In 1980 Tecan , a company for pipetting technology, was founded. Foreign investors have settled in the Pipetting Valley since the 1990s .

In the USA there are e.g. B. the cluster of the automotive industry in and around Detroit and the high-tech cluster of the so-called Silicon Valley since 1971 , which due to the spin-off of the Fairchild Semiconductor group with its numerous patents and based on the Stanford Research Park at the end of the Vietnam War one experienced booming development.

An example of an early “biotechnology” cluster is vaccine development and production in Philadelphia , which was largely stimulated by the high willingness of the Quakers settling in Pennsylvania to vaccinate . This example illustrates the role of “soft” cultural factors in cluster development. Clusters can also develop from social institutions or around them. B. the health cluster in Boston around the Massachusetts General Hospital founded in 1811 with its almost 20,000 employees and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary founded in 1824 , two clinics that have also achieved international recognition as research facilities.

With the ever faster development of new basic technologies, clusters can lose importance relatively quickly compared to earlier times. An example of this are the traditional automobile clusters, the added value of which is based on mechanical components up to 90 percent, but which are being replaced by new cluster locations (e.g. in Tesla Motors in Palo Alto ) in the context of electromobility, which requires completely new basic technologies . A conversion of the old clusters to products with new basic technologies would mean that they lose a high proportion of their added value in the short term and / or have to outsource it, while at the same time they have to generate a high turnover with the new products from scratch. That is hardly possible as it would be tantamount to cannibalizing one's own portfolio. Using the example of the United States, for example, the lead clusters have shifted further and further west from the east coast to the Pacific coast in the course of technical development because they did not succeed in converting to new basic technologies.

Under the influence of the accelerated structural change of the last decades, cluster formation was increasingly understood as an instrument and opportunity for national, regional or local economic and regional promotion. However, as was often the case in previous centuries, the universities and technology parks newly founded since the 1980s remained important focal points for cluster development in knowledge-based economies. In isolated cases, international research funding resulted in the formation of clusters, such as the establishment of the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste in 1961 under the auspices of UNESCO and the IAEA . There were connections with existing scientific structures - there has been an astronomical observatory there since 1898, a university since 1924, as well as facilities for geophysical , marine biological, karst and cave research, medical and genetic engineering research - but also a subsequent regional funding for today's AREA Science Park (1982) and for the realization of the Sistema Trieste (2003) project, which u. a. operates a synchrotron .

In addition, in a globalized economy, major ports and the centers of air traffic have become the centers of clusters. B. the network logistics Leipzig-Halle or the company settlements around the Rhein-Main airport .

A distinction is made between clusters with a single focal company (e.g. Rhein-Main airport) and multi-local clusters with several crystallization points (e.g. IT cluster Rhein-Main-Neckar with SAP , Software AG and other important companies).

Industry clusters (examples)

According to Acatech, there are around 500 regional cluster initiatives and networks in Germany. A cluster map and portraits of the most important clusters in Germany can be found on the cluster platform of the BMBF .

biotechnology

One of the largest life science clusters is based in Basel around the Novartis company . It generates around 18% of Switzerland's gross domestic product and is growing at an average of 9 to 10% per year from 2000 to 2010.

Fast-growing clusters of biotechnology companies are also concentrated in Cambridge , Geneva and Southern California as well as around the University of Toronto . The pharmaceutical and biotechnology cluster Medicon Valley is located on both sides of the Øresund in Copenhagen and Skåne . In Boston , numerous biotechnology companies have established themselves around the major hospitals ( Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eyes and Ears Hospital ). The high-tech cluster of Oxfordshire is largely shaped by research institutions and biotechnology companies, but is becoming less important than Cambridge. The biotechnology clusters in Munich and Paris have also shrunk in recent years.

In Martinsried (municipality Planegg ), southwest of Munich, only 50 biotech companies settled. The core were the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry , the Grosshadern University Clinic , the Gene Center of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Innovation and Startup Center for Biotechnology (IZB) (see Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology ).

Newer clusters can be found primarily in the region of Central Germany, which is now home to around 300 biotech companies. Since the mid-1990s, scientific institutions have settled here, which are the core of emerging biotech clusters. While cluster activities are organized nationwide (Life Sciences Cluster Central Germany), individual locations emerged in the region such as Halle ( Weinberg Campus ; 21,000 m² area in four technology centers with approx. 50 companies), Leipzig (BIO CITY; 17,000 m² with approx. 30 companies) or Jena (Center for Bioinstrumentation; 7,500 m² with approx. 30 companies).

The region around the cities of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Darmstadt has been one of the well-known biotech locations in Germany since the mid-1990s. Numerous small and medium-sized biotech companies, pharmaceutical and diagnostics manufacturers have settled there. The largest cluster of companies is in close proximity to academic research and training facilities. These include u. a. the University of Heidelberg and its Center for Biomedicine and Medical Technology Mannheim (CBTM), the University of Mannheim , the German Cancer Research Center ( DKFZ ), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory ( EMBL ) and the Heidelberg University Hospital . The cluster is not based on national borders, it corresponds to an area that has evolved over time. His thematic focus is on medical or red biotechnology, especially personalized medicine and cancer.

Cross-border with Life Science Nord, a biotechnology cluster developed in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein with around 500 companies, including Dräger Medical Germany , Philips Medizin Systeme , Olympus and numerous medium-sized and small companies with a total turnover of € 2.7 billion. Other German biotech clusters exist in the Berlin region (Science Parks Berlin-Buch and Berlin-Adlershof ) and in the Rhine-Main region.

As part of the BioIndustrie 2021 (2006) competition, five industrial clusters were funded. a. is the replacement of petrochemical raw materials with renewable raw materials in the production of polymers . Since 2008, these goals have been pursued nationally under the BioIndustrie 2012 umbrella brand in order to make the experience fruitful for the entire industry. With the increasing maturity of bioprocess engineering, more and more large companies are included in the clusters.

Medical technology

The Medical Valley EMN (Nuremberg) medical technology cluster, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the top cluster competition, has been in existence since 2010 with around 30 companies and research institutions, which emerged from the Medical Technology Pharma Innovation Center in Erlangen , which was founded in 2001 .

A larger medical technology cluster has developed in the Baden-Württemberg city of Tuttlingen and the surrounding region since 1867 . Tuttlingen is the name of the world center for medical technology. There are more than 400 mostly small and medium-sized medical technology companies based there, which employ around 8,000 people. They mainly manufacture surgical instruments and devices, endoscopes and diagnostic devices. Around 65% of the products are exported. The companies in this cluster include the two largest companies Aesculap AG (subsidiary of B. Braun Melsungen AG ) and Karl Storz, as well as more than 400 other medical technology companies.

Another medical technology cluster is located in Hechingen, all related to dialysis .

Mechanical and plant engineering

The clusters of mechanical and plant engineering have developed partly at the locations of their customer industries or individual significant customers, partly depending on local supply factors (material, special know-how, training centers, special inventions).

From the Black Forest watch industry z. B. the transmission construction cluster in Eisenbach (Black Forest) emerged. In general, in the alpine and mountain regions - assuming the appropriate material availability - the long, forced winter break of mountain farmers has particularly encouraged occupation with (fine) mechanical work. The knitting machine cluster in Hechingen is an example of the afterlife of this development, which was also promoted by the climatic conditions of the Hochalb and the resulting need for knitted and hosiery goods. Knitting and warp-knitting machines have a particularly filigree technology.

Traditional mechanical engineering clusters exist in Germany e.g. B. in the Bergisches Land and in Ostwestfalen-Lippe, plant engineering clusters z. B. in Saxony-Anhalt at the locations of the chemical industry and former mining. A cluster for conveyor technology and logistics systems has developed around the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology . This can u. a. tie in with the tradition of the mechanical engineering company in Karlsruhe , in which well-known engineers such as Emil Keßler , Niklaus Riggenbach , Carl Benz , Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach worked.

A mechanical engineering and mechatronics cluster with a correspondingly specialized university exists in Dunedin ( New Zealand ).

Aerospace Industry

Clusters of the aerospace industry are located in Upper Bavaria (entire value chain of military and civil aviation), in the Stuttgart / Backnang area (satellite communication) and in Bremen. In the metropolitan region of Hamburg, there is a civil aviation cluster with Airbus, Lufthansa Technik and over 300 suppliers. It is represented and promoted by the Hamburg Aviation Association. An ABC aerospace cluster NRW is located in North Rhine-Westphalia . The Dortmund Technology Center is responsible for coordinating the cross-sectional technologies working group .

Automotive and automotive supplier industries

The Stuttgart and Karlsruhe regions are considered to be automobile cluster regions. In addition, there is an automotive cluster in the Hanover Braunschweig Göttingen Wolfsburg metropolitan region , where the largest European automobile manufacturer, Volkswagen AG , is based. Automotive clusters can still be found in Bergisches Land and Saxony. The Automotive Cluster East Germany sees itself as a transnational initiative .

On a global scale, the entire German automotive industry with the branches and suppliers in the Central European countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) can be seen as a giant cluster. With a turnover of 368 billion euros and 775,000 employees (excluding suppliers), the automotive industry is Germany's largest industrial sector. Their importance has increased further in recent years: their share in the gross value added of the German economy rose from 2.8 to 4.0 percent between 1995 and 2015 and their share in industrial employees from 10.9 to 12.8 percent. This illustrates the cluster risks that could become virulent, for example, through a global image crisis in the German automotive industry or even just for the largest German manufacturer. Around 15 large and medium-sized German suppliers, each with ten to over forty percent of their sales, are dependent on Volkswagen AG. The exports of the German auto industry to the USA alone account for one percent of German economic output.

Plastics industry

The EU, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Oberbergische Kreis and leading companies from the plastics cluster in the district are funding a research project that includes the development of a vertical search engine for plastics in Germany.

MAI Carbon is the top cluster initiative of Carbon Composites eV with the aim of mass production. 70 companies and research institutions (as of December 1, 2013) have joined forces to jointly advance carbon research and the training of specialists. The Federal Ministry of Research honored the group based in the Munich Augsburg Ingolstadt (MAI) region with a prize. In this region there are companies such as SGL Carbon, BMW, Audi, the Airbus subsidiary Premium Aerotec and Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH as well as research centers of the Fraunhofer Institute and the German Aerospace Center.

Fan industry

Sometimes one company is enough to grow a cluster. After the Second World War, the brothers Heinz and Günther Ziehl and the Ziehl-Abegg company settled in the town of Künzelsau in Hohenlohe at the invitation of the Stahl elevator company to supply steel with external rotor motors . The AG R.Stahl had moved before the war until its destruction by bombing of the Ziehl-Abegg in Berlin external rotor motors.

Since external rotor motors are particularly suitable for low-wear fans, the design manager at Ziehl-Abegg, Wilhelm Gebhardt, urged the owner Heinz Ziehl to also manufacture roof fans. But since he continued to rely on major customers, he provided Gebhardt with money in 1958 so that he could set up a fan factory, which he supplied with electric motors. Because of the extraordinary success of Gebhardt, Ziehl-Abegg also began to manufacture fans; it was limited to fans over 300 millimeters in diameter.

For fans with a blade wheel diameter of less than 300 millimeters, Heinz Ziehl sent his work preparation manager Gerhard Sturm with 35 men and start-up capital to Mulfingen in the neighboring Jagst Valley in 1963 to set up his own company. At that time, in order to protect agriculture in the Jagst Valley, the state of Baden-Württemberg ordered the company to never employ more than 85 people. In 2001, EBM, Elektrobau Mulfingen, had 2000 employees (8000 worldwide) at its headquarters and manufactured 13 million small fans. Since 1992, EBM has also been the parent company of the company Papst Motoren in St. Georgen, known for fans for cooling computers, and since 1997 of the MVL in Landshut. In 2003 these three companies were renamed ebm-papst GmbH & Co. KG.

In 1981 Ziehl-Abegg's sales manager, Karl Rosenberg, went into business for himself; the Rosenberg GmbH today also makes millions of revenues from the sale of fans.

Ebm-papst GmbH & Co KG today (2014) has around 12,000 employees and around 1.57 billion euros in sales. Ziehl-Abegg SE employs approx. 3550 people and generates 482 million euros in sales, Rosenberg Ventilatoren GmbH with 1,400 employees worldwide has around 150 million euros in sales in Germany (2012); In addition, the Nicotra Gebhardt cluster also includes fans .

Optical and precision engineering industry

Optical and precision engineering clusters have been created on the basis of craft businesses since the 18th century around universities and observatories (such as Göttingen) with their high demand for geodetic , physical and astronomical measuring devices. Jena with the companies Carl Zeiss , Goertz already became an internationally important optical cluster in the beginning of the 20th century. The first microscopes were built in series here. Today, around 100 optics and precision technology companies have annual sales of 1.3 billion euros. Zeiss (the headquarters are in Oberkochen in Württemberg), Jenoptik , Schott , Analytik Jena and a large number of small system manufacturers and component manufacturers are the determining factors for the city's structure today . Research and development takes place partly in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Mechanics (IOF). Similar clusters have now formed all over Germany and have come together in OptecNet Germany . In contrast, the optics cluster in Dresden that emerged in the 19th century with companies such as Goltz & Breutmann , Pentacon and Balda has lost relative importance.

Migration movements can also trigger clusters, as the example of the Swiss watch industry in the canton of Jura , which was founded by French Huguenots , shows .

Microsystem technology and nanotechnology

Grenoble is the location of a micro-nanocluster ( Minalogic ). Together with Lyon and the local biotechnology cluster ( Lyonbiopôle ), the region is often perceived as a unit in structural terms. The employment structure in the cluster is characterized by a disproportionately high proportion of engineers and highly qualified foreign employees for France. In 2007, the proportion of engineers in all employees in the region was 6.4%. 10% of the employees were foreign employees. If you summarize all fields of competence, then 21,000 people were employed in research. The area of ​​infectious diseases has 2,500 researchers, in the area of ​​micro- and nanotechnologies there are 4,000 researchers (information from Lyonbiopôle). In 2007 there were a total of 61,000 students in the region, around 9,000 of them from abroad.

A nanotechnology cluster ( microsystem / MST cluster ) with 2,300 employees in 45 companies has also formed in Dortmund . The Dortmund Technology Center has the Best Science Based Incubator Award 2006 in the category support of cluster development in third place.

In southwest Germany, especially in Baden-Württemberg, a microsystem technology cluster has developed over time, which today, with around 380 cluster partners, is one of the largest technology networks in Europe. In 2010, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research named it one of 15 top clusters in Germany. Under the umbrella of the cluster management and professional association of microsystem technology microTEC Südwest eV, large companies (e.g. Bosch, Festo, Balluff, Roche Diagnostics or Sick) cooperate with around 245 SMEs, more than 50 universities, colleges and other research institutions in order to develop leading innovations .

Sensors

The 'Strategische Partnerschaft Sensorik eV' is the cluster platform for the field of sensor technology as part of the Free State of Bavaria 's cluster offensive . The association has more than 50 member companies and institutes from business and science as well as over 150 partners. In 2009 it was awarded the "Competence Prize 2009" as one of the best networks in Germany. There is a close cooperation with companies in Lower Austria.

Software and computers

The largest European software cluster, the Rhein-Main-Neckar IT cluster, has developed in the Rhine-Main and Rhine-Neckar region with SAP in Walldorf and Software AG in Darmstadt as centers. The success of SAP - originally a spin-off from the IBM group in Weinheim (Bergstrasse) - was initially due to a single innovation, namely data input via the screen terminal instead of punch cards . There are now around 15 metropolitan areas for software development in Europe. These include a. London / Oxford, Lombardy, Helsinki, Upper Bavaria and Stockholm. The largest European cluster in southwest Germany, however, has significantly lower growth rates than other smaller software development clusters such as Berlin or Warsaw. In a 2013 study, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft found that the large European clusters are barely growing, while the growing clusters are still very small. 30 European legal systems and 27 languages ​​as well as the low level of standardization in public procurement contribute to this. At 41 billion euros (2013), the entire European software industry is still smaller than Microsoft (57 billion euros in sales), which also invests more in research.

Silicon Valley is not the only US software cluster, however. From Route 128 to Interstate 495 , many major IT companies have settled on old industrial sites. The backbone of this cluster were research institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University and Boston University . Many high-tech companies emerged from the environment of these universities. Due to the availability of highly qualified personnel, large foreign corporations also founded a branch in the greater Boston area. These included u. a. Intel , AMD , HP , IBM and German companies such as Osram , Carl Zeiss or TVM Capital . In the 1980s, the term “Route 128” was used in a similar way to Silicon Valley . With the demise of the minicomputer, which was mainly developed and manufactured in the greater Boston area, Route 128 lost much of its appeal. The region had to specialize in other areas and successfully launched cluster initiatives in the areas of communication technology and life sciences ( biotechnology and medical technology ). The cleantech sector has also been promoted more intensively since 2007.

BlackBerry is part of the Canadian IT cluster that developed around the University of Waterloo , Ontario . Around 600 high-tech companies have also settled around the University of Madison , Wisconsin .

The formation of giant high-tech clusters is typical for emerging countries. One example is the software industry that India was able to locate and develop in Bangalore , represented by names such as SAP, Infosys, Wipro and Motorola.

Financial clusters

Its name is expressed in the term financial center . Large financial clusters ( big banks , stock exchanges and related financial services ) are located in London (approx. 400,000 employees; London financial center ), New York City (approx. 350,000 employees, who receive more than half of the wages of the approx. 1.9 million employees in Manhattan ), also in Frankfurt am Main ( financial center Frankfurt am Main ), Zurich or Singapore . 22% of the added value in the Zurich / Aargau region is generated by the financial sector. The banking cluster around Lake Zurich is supplemented by an insurance cluster ; around 200 private insurers operate here, including two of the world's largest insurance companies. Important German insurance locations are Cologne and Munich .

Consulting / business advice

The consulting industry has a special focus with around 169,000 employees in almost 17,000 companies and a turnover of almost 20 billion euros in the Rhine-Main economic region and, after the financial cluster, is the cluster with the strongest regional concentration in the region. The number of consulting companies in Rhein-Main has increased almost fivefold since 1980. In the state capital Wiesbaden alone , 48 percent of the new jobs have since been created in consulting.

Creative industries

Audiovisual media production, press, design, advertising and complex creative services can benefit greatly from cluster formation, since creative resources are (must) constantly exchanged. The settlement of creative companies with their (relatively) small company sizes and high degree of specialization often leads to the establishment of further creative companies. Classic examples are the media clusters in Berlin / Potsdam / Babelsberg (media city), Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and in the USA the film industry in Hollywood .

A very successful cluster is the Digital Media City in Seoul , which since the late 1990s has developed into a location for around 10,000 providers in the digital media sector.

Due to the often small size of creative companies, it is difficult to direct their settlement, as this particularly depends on soft location factors and networking with large, already known players. In the case of Seoul, Samsung is one such actor. A network of many small, homogeneous actors, e.g. B. Internet start-ups will hardly succeed if there are not already large potential clients (“focal companies”) in the region. The attempts to establish the creative industries in the Ruhr area, for example through the ECCE initiative in the Dortmund underground tower, which have been intensified since 1999 and increasingly since 2010, the year of the European Capital of Culture , have been unsuccessful and have been able to increase the attraction of Cologne (with the focal actor WDR ) and Düsseldorf do not oppose anything. The turnover in the industry fell by more than 6% from 2009 to 2012, while it rose by almost 7% across Germany in the same period.

Construction and real estate industry / architecture

In the Frankfurt / Rhine-Main region, a cluster of the construction and real estate industry with over 100,000 employees has formed; A construction / architecture cluster around the ETH Zurich .

environmental engineering

An environmental technology cluster was created in the Mülheim, Essen and Oberhausen region with the support of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. However, there are several initiatives in North Rhine-Westphalia that claim to cluster environmental technology providers regionally or nationally. Which of these structures are sustainable will only be revealed after the project funding has expired.

Fashion

The spatial focal points of the fashion industry in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are Cologne , the Middle Lower Rhine with the cities of Mönchengladbach , Neuss , Krefeld and, above all, Düsseldorf as a fashion trading city, which has also achieved great international importance thanks to its numerous fashion fairs and showrooms (approx. 850). Another innovative and traditional fashion location is located in East Westphalia in the city triangle between Bielefeld , Herford and Gütersloh .

Agriculture and food industry

An example of successful cluster formation in agriculture is the Napa Valley wine-growing region in California , measuring just 48 × 6.4 km , in which 23,000 employees in 250 wineries and 666 winegrowers produced and marketed a good 120 million bottles of wine in 2001.

Forestry and timber industry

In the summer of 2006, the German Forestry Council (DFWR) and the German Wood Management Council agreed to form an association cluster "Platform Forest & Wood" for the sustainable development of these two economic areas. The agreement was signed on May 8, 2007 in Fulda .

The example of timber and forestry also illustrates the problematic consequences of regional cluster formation. In some regions of Austria with a relatively homogeneous to monocultural structure , sawn timber is produced by numerous producers, of whom only a few entered the next processing stages or with companies in the following value-added stages such as B. the furniture industry are networked. With added value in the core area of ​​wood and forestry of ATS 71.6 billion in 1999, only ATS 8.4 billion additional added value was induced in downstream areas because there is still a lot of raw wood and products with little added value (sawn wood and Chipboard and waste products such as pallets) are exported. An increasing proportion was also used for energy. In 2000, out of 10.4 million m³ of coniferous sawn timber produced, over 6 million m³ were exported unprocessed, while at the same time wood products were imported in the amount of about half the export volume. At the same time, between 2003 and 2009, the amount of felling and production continued to grow, especially at the lower value-added level. (The resulting drop in prices, however, ended in 2010 because there were no more storm disasters and the timber industry also set up wet storage.) A regional concentration of similar companies does not automatically lead to clustering, networking and cooperation in the value chain, but rather to increased competition and to the drop in prices, occasionally also to the shortage of local production factors typical of the industry and thus to an increase in costs.

Networking patterns between clusters

Some clusters such as logistics, IT, finance and consulting are locally strongly networked with other clusters and, with their network technologies, form an interaction platform for them. You can thereby accelerate their settlement and growth. A strong concentration of finance and consulting such as B. in the Rhine-Main area, however, due to competition for employees and locations, resources can also be withdrawn from the manufacturing industry and other service sectors, so that by no means automatic synergy effects between all types of clusters can be assumed.

However, clusters that are located at different levels of the value chain, such as the coal and steel industry and mechanical engineering, usually benefit from the cooperative exchange of knowledge if they are similarly strong or mutually dependent on one another.

Cluster policy

In business development , the establishment of clusters is seen as active promotion of settlement and innovation . Cluster funding is now part of the standard repertoire of regional economic policy. It is being pursued and propagated more or less intensively by the EU Commission as well as by the federal and state governments. Based on an analysis of the relevant value chain in the regional context, the potential for building up and promoting a particular cluster can be estimated and cluster management implemented. This can e.g. B. be organized in the form of an association in which the various stakeholders are represented, or be located in chambers or other local organizations of economic development that are supported by advisory boards of the stakeholders. These associations of politics, administration, research, education and business serve to promote "suitable" settlements and innovations in the region and to profile the clusters.

The instruments of cluster policy are very diverse. Partly contradicting. They encompass a range of measures from the local or regional establishment and concentration of companies in the same industry to targeted diversification, the establishment of special economic zones , R&D funding, the development of know-how carriers such as universities and technology centers, right through to funding cross-border and global cooperation. The exchange of information, joint trade fair appearances, employee qualification and PR measures by previously competing small and medium-sized companies are also among these instruments and are promoted especially in Germany and Austria.

Countries with rapidly growing economies such as the People's Republic of China , Singapore or Malaysia are currently trying to build up competence centers in the field of new technologies with large resources and thereby acquire know-how from abroad to support the rapid formation of clusters. A large center for biotechnology and vaccine research is being built in Changchun . However, there is a risk here that the framework conditions in the settlement regions (excellence in education, infrastructure, quality of living) will not grow accordingly and that the planned high-tech start-ups will prove to be unsustainable.

The question remains whether and with what means of economic development and regional policy the formation of clusters can actually be influenced in a targeted and sustainable manner and what role soft factors such as the education system play in this. In addition to examples of success, there are many examples of failed cluster policies, double funding and permanent cross-subsidization . In addition, there is a growing trend on the political and association side not to concentrate the application of research and development results on regional clusters of a few pilot users, but to include existing companies and industries from the start and roll out innovations across the board.

Cluster policy in Germany

After years of focusing on basic research, in 1996 innovation funding through networking was explicitly included as an instrument of funding policy. The main goals of research, technology and innovation funding are listed there:

• Promote the emergence of fundamental innovations
• Competition of the best solution ideas for the realization of substantial innovations
• Securing and strengthening Germany as a production location
• Development of innovative networks between science and industry
• Development of innovations in interdisciplinary and cross-sector projects
• cooperative use of distributed know-how
• rapid and wide diffusion of new knowledge.

The first cluster program in Germany to be funded according to these criteria (1995) was the BioRegio initiative with 25 regional focuses. This has been followed by eleven other nationwide measures to date:

Chronological representation of the nationwide cluster measures in Germany from 1995 to 2012

• 1992: Berlin-Brandenburg Innovation Prize
• 1999: InnoRegio
• 2000: Learning Regions
• 2001: Company Region - Innovative regional growth centers
• 2002: NEMO
• 2005: InnoProfile and GA funding for clusters
• 2006: BioIndustrie cluster competition 2021 . As part of this competition to promote white biotechnology , several cluster initiatives were initiated nationwide, five of which were awarded prizes in 2007.
• 2007: BioPharma competition and 1st round of the top cluster competition
• 2008: ZIM-Nemo and Enterprise Region - cutting-edge research and innovation in the new federal states
• 2009: 2nd round of the top cluster competition
• 2011: 3rd round of the top cluster competition
• 2012: go-cluster : Excellent network
• 2014: Brandenburg Innovation Prize for the food industry, plastics and chemistry and metal clusters. The Brandenburg Innovation Prize is announced annually

Regional cluster policy - a selection
In addition to the national cluster programs, almost all federal states, with the exception of Saxony, also launched regional programs. In Baden-Wuerttemberg, 81 clusters have formed in 20 fields of innovation to date. B. the Future Aerospace Network (FAN) within the innovation field of aerospace.

In Bavaria, the Bavarian cluster offensive led to the formation of 23 clusters divided into 19 fields of competence or key sectors. Examples of this are the biotechnology cluster , the Bavarian environmental cluster or the sensor technology cluster with the company's management in Regensburg. However, the cluster policy in Bavaria is dominated by large companies such as Siemens , infineon , EADS and Audi , which is particularly pronounced in the case of the sensor technology cluster.

A total of nine clusters were formed in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, each covering a field of innovation. Five of these clusters are jointly supported by both federal states within the framework of innoBB, the other four clusters by Brandenburg alone. One of the jointly funded clusters is the communication and creative industries cluster in Berlin with numerous IT and media companies. In order to promote the state's innovative strength, the Brandenburg State Minister for Economic Affairs awards the Brandenburg Innovation Prize every year .

The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg also supports just as many cluster initiatives in eight fields of competence. Below is u. a. the maritime cluster with the starting point of the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel .

The relatively small state of Hesse has over 35 cluster initiatives, including a. in the chemical industry as well as in the fields of medicine, automotive and logistics.

Lower Saxony is funding a total of 99 clusters in seven future fields through the "Forging the Future" initiative. B. the packaging cluster South Lower Saxony or the automotive cluster.

North Rhine-Westphalia has 16 state clusters and a large number of regional networking initiatives. The cluster policy is currently in a revision phase. Was criticized by the CDU-FDP state government in 2007, the previously strongly pronounced spatial orientation of economic development, because it was accused of watering can policy and the promotion of the weak, and through a competition-oriented approach with the promotion of nationwide instead of regional clusters and an emphasis on Replaced existing strengths, this strategy led to clusters of up to 3,000 companies, which are now to be regionalized again because of their low controllability.

In recent years, the BMBF has intensified its efforts to open up German clusters internationally in order to improve international opportunities for cooperation and thus global competitiveness. So far, these activities have remained largely unresponsive at the state level.

Cluster policy in Austria

The cluster policy in Austria is still poorly coordinated. This is especially true with regard to the coordination of central activities with those of the federal states. In particular, Upper Austria and Styria have positioned themselves as competence regions for cluster and network initiatives in recent years and are expanding the existing economic and technological fields of strength with the aim of strengthening the innovative capacity of companies, particularly through cooperative collaboration. The "Clusterland Upper Austria" meanwhile comprises 8 clusters and 4 networks. In the 2006 founded Clusterland Oberösterreich GmbH (Linz) six cluster initiatives and three thematic networks are united under one roof. Examples of cluster initiatives are the Automobile Cluster (AC) - the largest Austrian cluster with around 90,000 employees and 18 billion euros in sales - as well as the Food Cluster (LC) and the Upper Austria Eco-Energy Cluster. Styria is a pioneer of the cluster strategy throughout Austria: The automobile cluster AC Styria, the environmental technology cluster Green Tech Cluster Styria, the wood cluster Styria, the human technology cluster and the creative industries initiate "growth through innovation" in the key themes of mobility, green tech and health tech. Many of the Austrian clusters are characterized by the participation of small companies with less than 5 employees.

Cluster policy in France

The results of French industrial policy are mixed. The intention to build up its own nuclear sector despite an American boycott succeeded; but the French state has spent billions of euros on a leading role in the electronics industry since the 1970s, but the results are mixed. A research and technology cluster is currently being set up on the Saclay plateau around 20 kilometers southwest of Paris, which will include the existing nuclear research facilities and the technically oriented University of Paris-Saclay . There is a collection of state and private research institutions, elite schools and residential areas with TGV connections. With the project, France wants to rise to the top of the world in research and technology clusters and be on an equal footing with Silicon Valley.

Cluster policy in the EU

Relevant cluster initiatives of the EU were the European research initiative EUREKA , the Europe INNOVA initiative founded within the framework of the 6th Framework Program and the initiatives of DG Enterprise and Industry PRO INNO and, since 2008, PRO INNO II , which are intended to improve the political instruments of cluster development and innovation management.

A study by the European Commission from 2005 identified five large, stagnating to rapidly growing industrial and service clusters. These were determined purely statistically on the basis of the average annual growth rates from EU 15 between 1979 and 2001, so they are not necessarily closely linked, but contain very heterogeneous branches of industry. These clusters are to be merged with the five technology fields of nanoelectronics, aeronautics and aviation management, hydrogen and fuel cells, photovoltaics and food for life. The prognosis shows that high productivity growth but only low employment growth can be expected from these technology-sector combinations, which calls into question the postulated congruence of technology, industrial and labor market policy measures.

Cluster policy in Switzerland

In Switzerland there are among other things

• the (in Switzerland: “the”!) Life Science Cluster Northwestern Switzerland with Basel and the companies Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche as the center
• the Consulting Cluster, a platform to expand the personal network of consultants. Organized in 9 specialist groups, the Consulting Cluster aims to increase awareness of the industry in the Swiss economic area. www.consultingcluster.ch
• the energy cluster
• the ICT Cluster Bern
• the Precision Cluster, a platform for companies, suppliers, training and research institutions that are active in the field of precision industry and microtechnology.

Cluster policy in China

Typical of the development in China are the accumulation of various labor-intensive, sometimes giant clusters in special economic zones and large industrial and test-tube cities, as well as the concentration of high-tech companies, research and training institutions and incubators in a very small space. In Zhejiang Province alone, priority will be given to 12 clusters. The expansion of the IT industry and other clusters in the planned city of Shenzhen , where 2,500 IT companies are active in a special economic zone of almost 2,000 square kilometers, is taking place just as quickly . However, it is questionable whether the so-called high-tech clusters really produce innovations or whether their rapid growth is not primarily based on tax advantages and high subsidies.

Cross-border clusters (examples)

A cross-border cluster on the middle Upper Rhine is the Biovalley network , which brings together chemical, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the border triangle of Germany, France and Switzerland. A technology cluster is developing further up the Rhine between St. Gallen and Vorarlberg .

The transnational technology triangle Eindhoven - Leuven - Aachen with the university cores of RWTH Aachen University , Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Technical Hogeschool Eindhoven as well as Philips NV enjoys an excellent reputation as a research and development location for life sciences, medical technology, IT and nanotechnology.

An agro-business cluster is developing in the German-Dutch border area, which is funded by the SafeGuard project. In particular, the coordination of organizational processes for risk-oriented food monitoring, animal disease control and the optimization of the value chains of food of animal origin play a role.

In the triangle of Slovakia , the Czech Republic and Poland , five of the world's largest automobile groups produce VW , KIA , PSA, Peugeot, Citroën , Hyundai and Fiat . For every 1000 inhabitants in the automotive region of Western Slovakia (with the center in Bratislava ) there are over 100 cars produced per year. Numerous suppliers have settled in the vicinity of the production facilities. The regional networking of the locations is actively promoted by the EU. The EU-funded AutoNet and Autoclusters funding programs strengthen cooperation between neighboring countries.

Virtual clusters

Virtual clusters are only successful in the high-tech area . In industries in which logistics costs play a subordinate role in relation to value added, flight connections and the Internet are sufficient to establish stable cooperation relationships.

Risks of one-sided cluster funding

The automobile cluster of Slovakia shows the risks of promoting a one-sided cluster structure. 99% of the automobile production in Slovakia is exported. The added value of the auto industry per capita is higher than in any other country in the world. With a total population of a good 5.4 million, 1,000 inhabitants statistically produce around 107 vehicles per year, making Slovakia the world leader in 2008. With 74,000 employees, the automotive sector was responsible for around a quarter of Slovakia's gross domestic product in 2008. During the 2008–2009 crisis, automobile production in the region and the country's car exports fell sharply. They could only be offset by increasing exports from Samsung , which overtook the export shares of VW, KIA and PSA, but does not belong to the cluster. The region's high level of economic dependency and dependence on Germany put the region under increasing pressure during the crisis. This accelerated the emigration from rural regions. The problems in the German automotive industry since 2018 have again resulted in cluster or cluster risks for the German and the entire Central European economy.

The weaknesses of homogeneous clusters are to be avoided through cross-cluster policy . Its aim is to network different clusters with one another and to institutionalize cross-cluster communication channels. The stronger a cluster becomes and the more its actors are globally active, the more the relations with the region usually loosen up, because in many cases the region is no longer able to provide the necessary preliminary work (training, suppliers, logistics, Energy supply, etc.) in the required quality and quantity. A cluster policy must therefore also ensure that the framework conditions keep pace with the growing performance of the cluster.

Numerous attempts to set up cross-border clusters a. Funded within the framework of EU projects have already proved to be unsustainable after a short time or are limited to selective cooperation. Obviously, a certain minimum interaction density is required in order to establish sustainable cluster structures. This also includes a not too large spatial distance.

The dynamic of cluster development has increased in recent years. Politicians can only influence their growth factors to a limited extent. In the course of the takeover of entire business fields by international competitors, local clusters can suffer significant losses in importance. B. in vaccine research and production in Munich and Paris was the case, z. T. emigrated to the USA.

literature

• AD Marshall: Principles of Economics: An Introductory Volume. 8th edition. MacMillan, London 1977.
• AD Marshall: Industry and Trade: A Study of Industrial Technique and Business Organization, and of their Influences on the Conditions of Various Classes and Nations. 4th edition. MacMillan, London 1923.
• Rasmus C. Beck, RG Heinze, J. Schmid: Strategic economic development and the design of high-tech clusters: Contributions to the opportunities and restrictions of cluster politics. Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-4193-2 .
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Individual evidence

1. ^ Michael Porter: Location, Competition, and Economic Development: Local Clusters in a Global Economy. In: Economic Development Quarterly. vol. 14, no.1, 2000, pp. 15-34.
2. ^ F. Huber: Social Capital of Economic Clusters: Towards a Network-based Conception of Social Resources. In: Journal of Economic and Social Geography (TESG). 100 (2), 2009, pp. 160-170. doi : 10.1111 / j.1467-9663.2009.00526.x
3. ↑ See e.g. B. the cross-departmental and cross-sector steering group for the entire Berlin Cluster Communication and Creative Industries, http://www.berlin.de/projektzukunft/kreativwirtschaft/clusterstrategien/
4. ↑ U. Mill, H.-J. Weißbach: Networking economy: causes, functional principles, functional problems. In: T. Malsch, U. Mill (ed.): ArBYTE: Modernization of industrial sociology. Sigma, Berlin 1992, pp. 315-342.
5. ^ Roberto P. Camagni: Local “Milieu”, Uncertainty and Innovation Networks: Toward a New Dynamic Theory of Economic Space. Unpublished Manuscript 1991, cit. Erich Latniak, Dieter Rehfeld: Business innovation and regional environment - experiences from North Rhine-Westphalia. In: work. Vol. 3, no. 3, p. 238 ff.
6. ^ Alfred Marshall: Principles of Economics. London 1890.
7. ^ PS Florence: Economics and Sociology of Industry. CA Watts & Co, London 1969.
8. ^ Paul Krugman: Development, Geography, and Economic Theory. Ohlin Lectures, Volume 6. Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1995.
9. ↑ A. Jappe-Heinze et al.: Cluster politics: Criteria for the evaluation of regional cluster initiatives. (= Working papers company and region ). FhG ISI Institute, Karlsruhe 2008, p. 4 ff.
10. ^ Henry S. Rowen: Serendipity or Strategy. In: Chong-Moon Lee et al. a. (Ed.): The Silicon Valley Edge. Stanford University Press 2000, p. 184 ff.
11. ↑ Annalee Saxenian: Networks of Immigrant Entrepreneurs. In: Chong-Moon Lee et al. a. (Ed.): The Silicon Valley Edge. Stanford University Press 2000, p. 248 ff.
12. ↑ Julian Kahl: Newer regional funding instruments put to the test: The example of funding competitions within the framework of the NRW cluster policy online. Working Paper, Uni Münster, online: uni-muenster.de , p. 10.
13. ↑ B. Alecke, UG Untiedt: To promote clusters: Savior or wolf in sheep's clothing. Munster 2005.
14. ^ R. Martin, P. Sunley: Deconstructing Clusters: Chaotic Concept or Policy Panacea? In: Journal of Economic Geography. 3rd vol., No. 1, 2003, pp. 5-35.
15. ↑ B. Alecke, G. Untiedt: For the promotion of clusters: 'Savior' or 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing '? GEFRA, Münster 2005.
16. ↑ Landesrechnungshof Schleswig-Holstein, http://www.landesrechnungshof-sh.de/file/bemerkungen2014_tz21.pdf (2014)
17. ↑ Yuqing Xing, Neal Detert: How the iPhone Widens the United States Trade Deficit with the People's Republic of China. ( Memento of February 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (= ADBI Working Paper Series. No. 257). Asian Development Bank, December 2010.
18. ↑ M. Lorenzen, P. Maskell: The cluster as a nexus of knowledge creation. In: P. Cooke, A. Piccaluga (Eds.): Regional Economies as Knowledge Laboratories. Edward Elgar, London 2005, pp. 77-92.
19. ↑ A multispectral camera, which was built under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen , accompanies the Dawn space probe, launched in 2012, on its flight to the dwarf planet Ceres . mpg.de
20. ↑ This cluster developed on the basis of the circular knitting machine from Fouquet in Rottenburg.
21. ↑ Reinhold Lawerino, Hans-Jürgen Weißbach: Structural problems and further training needs of mining machine manufacturers . Revised version of a study commissioned by the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia . AIQ, Dortmund 1991.
22. ↑ clusterobservatory.eu
23. ^ EM Rogers, JK Larsen: Silicon Valley Fever. Basic Books, New York 1984.
24. ↑ This was founded during the Korean War in 1951; http://www.silicon-valley-story.de/sv/stanford.html and after the settlement of Lockheed in California developed into an important knowledge producer for the aerospace industry.
25. ^ Website of the network
26. ↑ Jens Tönnesmann: Journey through Silicon Germany. In: WirtschaftsWoche. February 6, 2012.
27. ↑ https://www.clusterplattform.de/CLUSTER/Navigation/Karte/SiteGlobals/Forms/Formulare/karte-formular.html
28. ↑ Sergio Aiolfi: Basel needs pharma more than Pharma Basel. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. May 23, 2012.
29. ↑ schleswig-holstein.de ( Memento of the original dated June 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
30. ↑ The top cluster competition. ( Memento from February 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on: hightech-strategy.de
31. ↑ medical-valley-emn.de
32. ↑ tuttlingen.de ( Memento of the original from January 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
33. ↑ weltzentrum-der-medizintechnik.de 400 medical technology companies
34. ↑ Ute Fischer, Hans-Jürgen Weißbach: The change in gender-specific employment patterns in the textile and clothing industry. State Museum for Technology and Work, Mannheim 1992.
35. ↑ abc-cluster.de ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
36. ↑ Jürgen Dispan, Ralf Grammel: Automotive Cluster Region Stuttgart. Cluster report 1998/99. Stuttgart, IMU Information Service No. 4/1999; Jürgen Dispan, Sylvia Stieler: Automotive Cluster Report 2006. Vehicle construction in the Karlsruhe region. Stuttgart, IMU Information Service No. 1/2006.
37. ↑ acod.de
38. ↑ Dietmar Neuerer: VW crisis alarms top economists. In: Handelsblatt. September 24, 2015.
39. ↑ kunststoff-cluster.de
40. ↑ McK Wissen (ed. By McKinsey ), No. 1, 1st year (2002), pp. 10-19.
41. ↑ optecnet.de
42. ↑ Grenoble / Lyon High Tech Cluster ( Memento of February 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 25, 2015.
43. ↑ [1]
44. ↑ mikrotechnik-dortmund.de
45. ↑ publisher: BMBF top cluster microTEC Südwest. Retrieved May 23, 2017 . 
46. ↑ website of microTEC Südwest eV
47. ↑ Cluster platform Germany: microTEC Südwest. Retrieved May 23, 2017 . 
48. ↑ EU software cluster benchmark 2013 , cited. What Europ's software industry lacks for Silicon Valley , Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 27, 2012, international edition.
49. ↑ S. Rose Grant, D. Lampe: Route 128. Basic Books, New York, 1992, ISBN 0-465-04639-8 .
50. ^ Cluster Boston ( Memento of January 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 25, 2015.
51. ↑ 2013 Greater Madison Wisconsin Area Directory of High-Tech Companies. ( Memento from April 16, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )
52. ↑ Die Volkswirtschaft , 5 (2008) , p. 36.
53. ↑ ClusterStudie FrankfurtRheinMain , publisher: Regionalverband Rhein-Main, 2013, online: region-frankfurt.de
54. ↑ U. Mill, H.-J. Weißbach: Network economy. In: gdi impuls. Duttweiler Institute Rüschlikon, H. 1, 1993, pp. 30-38.
55. ↑ dortmunder-u.de
56. ↑ Creative industries in the Ruhr area in crisis: Sales are falling more and more. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. Dortmund edition, April 4, 2015, p. 9.
57. ↑ meo-tec.de
58. ^ E.g. http://www.umweltcluster-nrw.de/
59. ↑ Numbers and facts. ( Memento from July 23, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) on: creative.nrw.de
60. ↑ Associations of the forestry and timber industry are moving closer together. “Platform Forest & Wood” founded on May 8th. In: Holz-Zentralblatt. 133rd year 2007, p. 529, ISSN  0018-3792
61. ↑ Asta Eder, Karl Hogl, Peter Schwarzbauer: Value creation of the Austrian wood and forestry. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna 2004.
62. ↑ Forests in Austria , accessed September 25, 2015.
63. ↑ ClusterStudie FrankfurtRheinMain , Ed .: Regionalverband Rhein-Main, 2013, p. VI, (online)
64. ↑ BMBF: Federal Research Report 1996. Bonn 1996.
65. ↑ Institute for Innovation and Technology in the VDI / VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH: Cluster: Between hard facts and soft factors, annual report 2012 . Berlin
66. ↑ BioIndustrie 2021. bmbf.de, accessed on October 16, 2009 . 
67. ↑ Ministry of Finance, Economy, Baden-Württemberg: Regional Cluster Atlas Baden-Württemberg 2012  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  (PDF; 12.1 MB). Stuttgart 2012.
68. ↑ Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs: Cluster-Offensive Bavaria - In the Network for Success ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . (PDF; 3.0 MB). Munich 2012.  
69. ↑ Website of the sensor technology cluster
70. ↑ Senate of Berlin, Government of the State of Brandenburg: Joint Innovation Strategy of the States of Berlin and Brandenburg ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . (PDF; 964 kB). Berlin 2011. 
71. ↑ Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg: Cluster Policy in Hamburg - Together to the Top . (PDF; 8.5 MB). Hamburg 2001.
72. ^ Website of Hessen-Cluster
73. ^ Lower Saxony Ministry of Economics, Labor and Transport: Networks in Lower Saxony - Forging the Future . (PDF; 4.3 MB). Hanover 2012.
74. ↑ excellence.nrw.de
75. ↑ Julian Kahl: Newer regional funding instruments put to the test: The example of funding competitions within the framework of the NRW cluster policy online. Working Paper, Uni Münster, online: uni-muenster.de , p. 40.
76. ↑ Werner Clement, Silvia Welbich-Macek: Success story: 15 years of cluster initiatives in Austria. ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 2007, p. 225, accessed August 30, 2012. 
77. ↑ AC Styria . ACstyria Mobility Cluster GmbH. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
78. ↑ Green Tech Cluster Styria . Green Tech Cluster Styria GmbH. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
79. ↑ Holzcluster Styria . Holzcluster Steiermark GmbH. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
80. ↑ Human Technology Cluster . Human.technology Styria GmbH. Accessed February 2019.
81. ^ Creative Industries . Creative Industries Styria. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
82. ↑ Thomas Hanke: France between ambition and megalomania . In: Handelsblatt. October 25, 2016.
83. ↑ Europe INNOVA ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed August 30, 2012.  
84. ↑ http://www.forschungskoop.de/forschungskoop/ Accessed August 30, 2012.
85. ↑ energie-cluster.ch
86. ↑ tcbe.ch
87. ↑ http://www.cluster-precision.ch/ www.cluster-precision.ch
88. ↑ http://www.chinasourcingblog.org/Industrial%20Clusters.png Accessed August 30, 2012.
89. ↑ Ulrike Steinbrenner: Innovation Policy in the PR China: The Shenzhen High-Tech Industrial Park (SHIP). ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: China Analysis. 76, 2010. 
90. ↑ Mappus and Reinhart: “Strengthen the Upper Rhine and make it visible as a European powerhouse” - founding act of the metropolitan region in Offenburg ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). Accessed on September 25, 2015.
91. ↑ safeguard.giqs.org
92. ^ Automobile Cluster Central Europe ( Memento of September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 25, 2015.
93. ↑ kooperation-international.de