Clusters and Competitiveness poles in Wallonia

  • warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/vhosts/pro-inno/sites/all/modules/cck/theme/content-field.tpl.php on line 35.
  • warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/vhosts/pro-inno/sites/all/modules/cck/theme/content-field.tpl.php on line 35.

Belgium being a federal state with important economy-related regional competencies (eg. research and innovation), the main cluster policy actors are situated on the regional level.

The industrial policy developed in Wallonia mainly focused on the development of industrial networking through two complementary and linked policies : “Competitiveness Poles” and “business networks” (clusters).

Competitiveness Poles

Within the framework of its "Plan Marshall", the Government of Wallonia has initiated in 2005 a “Competitiveness Poles” policy. The main objective of this policy is to develop some key growth sectors on the basis of strong partnership projects between enterprises, research centres and training centres.

An university study identified 5 leading sectors for Wallonia : Aeronautics and space industry, Health, Agro-industry, Transport and logistics and Mechanical Engineering. Currently, the creation of a 6th Pole in Environmental technologies is currently in progress. To support the Competitiveness poles, the Government is launching, on a regular basis, calls for projects on their behalf. These projects can be of 3 kinds:

  • R&D projects (collaborative projects with at least two enterprises - among them a SME - and 2 research centres participating)
  • investment (common infrastructures meeting the Poles’ needs, e.g. research infrastructures or incubators)
  • training (specific training actions, in line with the Poles’ needs)

In terms of results, over the 2006-2009 period, 136 projects have been supported for a 235,480,423 € overall amount of public support. These are mainly research or training projects. These projects are expected to generate 9,287 jobs eventually.

Business networks

Launched in 2001, the objective of this policy is to develop business networks in specific domains, eventually with research operators, and, doing so, to develop a cooperation framework and a stronger economic structure within the sector. On the basis of a bottom-up approach, the regional authority is acting as a catalyst for the spontaneous demands of companies networks. The public support is focused on the animation costs of the networks, in a digressive perspective. A specific support may also be available for international and inter-cluster cooperation. Selected according to transparent criteria, every cluster is assessed every three years by independent experts. The main achievements are the following ones :

  • 13 acknowledged clusters, that can be distributed in 4 main techno-economic fields : “Mobility and transport”, “Environment and sustainable development”, “Food - Health – Polymers” and “Enabling Technologies”.
  • these clusters have more than 1.200 members, with more than 70% of enterprises;
  • around 80 inter-members partnerships were developed within business networks and 30 international partnerships with other clusters.

European perspective

Walloon Competitiveness poles and Clusters are involved in many European projects in the frame of a large range of EU programmes and initiatives : FP7, CIP, INTERREG, etc. Wallonia itself is member of the European Cluster Alliance and the INNET Network (PRO INNO EUROPE initiative).

Websites