List of speakers

Alain Tubiana is founder and managing director of iconoval, image cluster in Alsace since fall 2003 (87 members, 1600 employment, 130 M€ turnover).

He chairs etma (european television and new media management academy), first european business school dedicated to TV and new media management. At 50, Alain Tubiana worked 15 years as consultant in economic development strategies for territories and project management.

After studying public law and journalism, he started to work in 85 in politics as communication officer in a cabinet. He also chairs Territoires de l’image, a network of ten french image clusters and is member of the board of France Cluster, the french cluster organisation (100 membres). www.iconoval.fr; www.etma-academy.eu,

Dr. Alexander Bode is lecturer for management studies and management of enterprises and networks at Darmstadt University of Technology (Germany). He is also director of Hessenmetall Cluster-Initiative responsible for four networks in the metal industry in Germany. He studied industrial engineering and focused on international strategic management and mechanical engineering. Afterwards he spent 3 years as lecturer at DHL-Chair of Global Supply Chain Management at the Chinese German School for Postgraduate Studies at Tongji University Shanghai (China). He received his PhD from Darmstadt University of Technology. Working at chair of cluster & value chain management his research interests are in the fields of international business, clusters and network management.

Andrea Moltrasio is CEO of Icro Coatings S.p.A., a medium-size chemical enterprise located in the Bergamo area (Lombardy, Italy) and part of one of the most dynamic and innovative Europe’s chemical industry clusters. Mr Moltrasio is also active in the health sector, being Chairman and Managing Director of one of the oldest private hospitals in Italy, the Clinica Castelli S.p.A. In addition, he is in the Board of RCS MediaGroup (international multimedia publishing group), of UBI Banca (major Italian banking group), and President of BergamoScienza (international Science festival).
He founded and coordinated (2004-2007) the “Club of 15” - a consortium
that groups the 15 most industrialised provinces of Italy - and he also served as Vice President in the Executive Board of Confindustria (Confederation of Italian Industry) responsible for Europe (2006-2010) and as President of the Bergamo Province Industrial Association (2001-2005). Mr Moltrasio holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and a Master of Business Administration from Santa Clara University (CA,USA).

Stifterverband is the business community’s innovation agency for the German science system. Representing 3,000 companies, business associations and individuals, its sole source of funding is charitable giving. Since 1920, Stifterverband has acted as private industry’s joint initiative for supporting research and higher education.

The BDI is the umbrella organisation of German industry and industry-related service providers. It represents 36 industrial sector federations and speaks for more than 100,000 private enterprises employing around 8 million people. Membership is voluntary.

The Hero Group is an international food Group focused on branded retail business in baby-foods, fruit products, cereal bars and bakery and decorative products. Established in 1886 in Lenzburg, Switzerland, Hero’s operations are based predominantly in Europe, North America and Middle East/Africa. In 2009, the group generated revenues of $ 1.8 billion with approximately 4,000 employees in more than 30 countries.

Dr. Christian Ketels is a member of the Harvard Business School faculty at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. He holds a PhD (Econ) from the London School of Economics and is an Honorary Professor at the European Business School (EBS).

Dr. Ketels is currently also a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm School of Economics and Director of TCI, the global network of cluster practitioners. He has led cluster and competitiveness projects in many countries and advised the World Bank, OECD, EU, NIB, UNIDO as well as a number of national governments.

Dr. Ketels serves in advisory boards to research institutions and government agencies in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, and is a member of the European Commission’s European Cluster Policy Group.

After engineering school (Ecole Polytechnique + Ecole des Mines de Paris) Denis Bortzmeyer got his PhD in continuum mechanics of ceramic materials. He worked ten years in research and development with the chemical group Rhône-Poulenc (ceramics, catalysts supports...) and during this time got his habilitation to supervise research (ceramic powder behaviour).

In 1998 he joined Atochem, now Arkema, where he performed various R&D management functions in inorganic chemistry.

Since 2005 he his Head of Partnerships in the R&D Direction of Arkema, supervising the company's major collaborative R&D programs.

Emiliano Duch is the President and Founder of the firm COMPETITIVENESS, an international consulting group, specialising in 'Building Competitive Business Clusters,' which he founded with the support of leading business leaders such as Michael Porter and Alessandro Benetton.

As CEO of COMPETITIVENESS, he has acted as an advisor to hundreds of clusters, providing them with strategic advice and specialised e-services through projects sponsored by local organisations and governments, as well as multilateral institutions such as the European Commission, IADB and the UN. The group has carried out more than 100 consultancy projects in competitiveness reinforcement, at cluster level in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Emiliano is one of the founders and a former President of The Competitive Institute (TCI) and is still active in the Board of Advisors and in the on-going events of TCI. He is also the Director of the Barcelona Clusters Summer School, organised by the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, in early July, every year. This is a programme that offers courses covering everything from the conceptual framework for clusters to best practice examples of cluster development policies and cluster strategy and management.

Emiliano has a Master of Arts in Public Administration from Harvard University, an also an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Originally, he was an architect from UPC in Barcelona.

Erik Bunis is the CEO of LänsTeknikCentrum AB (LTC). Länsteknikcentrum (LTC) was established in 1987 and coordinates and encourages cooperation between industry, trade, the universities and society as a whole for a well working regional innovation system. A special focus is put on supporting SMEs. LTC supports companies in their development through transfer of technology and business intelligence. Since the start-up LTC has facilitated a network of qualified resources from a wide range of organisations and institutes.

Erik Bunis has a technical background from both mechanical- and civil engineering and started his career as Research Engineer at Chalmers University of technology in Gothenburg. After that he worked with the industry as Marketing Manager of the Sapa-group. During the 1990s he had different roles in Almi, the Swedish Development Agency. Since 2000 he is in charge of LTC and in that position he has assumed the role of process manager of the regional innovation system ReFine. He is continuously supporting the establishment of different industrial clusters such as the cluster initiative "Kingdom of Aluminium", the Wood Product cluster and recently one of the members in the steering committees for GnoHow (polymer and screw-cutting cluster). Through the ACENET initiative, the Erik Network and the NOVAREGIO-project Mr. Bunis supports cross-border collaboration between European clusters and company networks.

Frédéric Druck (44) holds a Master in Communication from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Brussels, Belgium) where he began his career as Assistant. He developed his professional communication skills by occupying the last 15 years different positions managing Public Relations in various organizations including the global pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme.

He was also at a time Head of Medical Practice at Interel, a Belgian Public Relations/Public Affairs agency. Since 2007, he is in charge of communication and international relations at BioWin, the Competitiveness Health Cluster of Wallonia (Belgium). BioWin is currently collaborating to 2 different European projects and is developing several partnerships with European, American and Chinese health clusters/organizations. BioWin is member of the Council of European BioRegions (CEBR) and of the European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN).

Gabor Lemak graduated excellent at the Budapest University of Economic Science. From 1999 to 2004 he was an economic researcher at GKI Economic Research Co., which is the most traditional and highly respected macroeconomic research company in Hungary. He did primary research in the following areas: M&A, Venture Capital business models and regulation, Risk Management and co-operated with the "Big Four" like Ernst&Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. From 2004 to 2007 he was the head of a consulting department at GKI's subsidiary and co-operated with leading Hungarian and multinational information technology companies. In 2007 he was employed as a director by GKI Consulting Ltd. and was the strategic advisor of Hungarian Telecom Plc, the market leading telecom company in Hungary. From the end of 2007 he has been the director of the Mobility and Multimedia Cluster, which is the biggest and one of the most successful clusters in Hungary.

George Giaglis is Associate Professor of eBusiness at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece. His main research interests lie in the areas of mobile and wireless applications and services; ubiquitous and pervasive information systems; business process modelling and simulation; and information systems evaluation.

He has published more than 120 articles in leading journals and international conferences, including the Information Systems Journal, the International Journal of Electronic Commerce, and the International Journal of Information Management. He has authored or edited 12 books and research volumes. He is a member of the editorial board of seven journals, including the International Journal of Mobile Communications and the Business Process Management Journal.

Since 2001, he is the Director of the ISTLab Wireless Research Center, a group pursuing research on mobile business and ubiquitous commerce.

Gerlinde Pöchhacker-Tröscher, 43, is managing director of PÖCHHACKER Innovation Consulting GmbH (P-IC), a consulting firm specialized in R&D, technology and innovation, founded in 2008. The clients of P-IC are public bodies like advising councils, ministries, regional governments and agencies as well as research institutions and industry associations.

Before, she was managing director of the Upper Austrian innovation agency TMG and responsible for research, innovation and clusters. In 2006 she initiated the EU project “CEE Cluster Network”.

From 1998 to 2005 she built up the Upper Austrian cluster initiatives in the fields of automotive, drive-technology, plastics, furniture and timber construction, health technology, mechatronics, human resources, environmental technology, logistics and design & media.

Göran Lindqvist, PhD, is Principal Associate at the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness (CSC), at the Stockholm School of Economics. His research focuses on agglomeration, clusters and cluster policy. He has published books and articles about clusters and cluster policy, and has conducted numerous cluster-related projects for international and national public agencies in Europe and the USA. He is project manager for the European Cluster Observatory (www.clusterobservatory.eu).

Harald Bleier has more than 20 years professional experience in the development of plastic injection moulding machines, last as head of the R&D department with BATTENFELD Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH, an enterprise with address in Lower Austria, acting world-wide. He is mentioned as inventor in more than 50 national, European, USA and PCT patents. From 2002 to 2005 he was involved in the establishment of the regional polymer processing companies’ network "Kunststoffnetzwerk Ost”, a nucleus of the Plastics Cluster in Lower Austria. Since 2005 he has been managing the Lower Austrian branch of the Plastics Cluster, a cross regional cluster initiative of 3 Austrian regions with about 400 member companies. Since 2010 he is also in charge of managing the Mechatronics Cluster in Lower Austria. Harald Bleier and his team of 4 project managers initiate collaborative projects of SMEs, coordinate national and international research projects, introduced and coordinate the Lower Austrian bio plastics initiative “N Packt’s” and many more.

Ms. Blomqvist has her roots in the creative sector with her first BA in Textile Design and BA in Visual and Media Arts (Media Production) at Tampere Polytechnic, Finland. She also has an MA in Interactive Media from the Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland in 2001.

In 2002 and 2003 Irina continued to participate in industry events. In
summer 2003 she brought her experience back to her native
country and joined her present employer Culminatum Innovation Ltd where she holds the position of Business Director in the Coordination of Finnish Digital Content Competence Cluster. From September 2003 to December 2006 she acted as Program Director for the Centre of Expertise for Digital Media, Content Production and Learning Services. Since 2005 she has also acted as a Vice President for the MindTrek association.

Irina acts as the editor-in-chief for the www.digibusiness.fi and www.digibusiness.eu portals. She is engaged in several national and international development projects and organisations in the area of digital content, competence and innovation management and knowledge creation and transfer. During year 2007 she also established an European DIGIBUSINESS Think Tank activity.

Jean Severijns deals with cross border activities and internationalisation in general and with regional innovation policy in particular. He works for the
Regional Government of the province of Limburg in the Netherlands as Project manager Internationalisation. Jean. Severijns has more than 20 years of experience in policy-making, matching business and governmental interests on strategic, tactical and operational level. In this way he combines theory with practical experiences and he was involved in more than 25 Regional Innovation Strategies in Europe..
He graduated with distinction (“Cum Laude”) as an economist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and worked during 6 years in the Rotterdam area for the “Rijnmond public authority”. After that, he was active all over Europe.as well as Russia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil

Jean Severijns chairs the Innovating Regions in Europe (IRE) Community of Practice and is a member of the Scientific Board of the Institute of Business Cybernetics of the Technical University of Aachen (Germany) as well as past president of the trinational LIONS Club; Euregio Maas Rhein.

Besides, he initiated many international projects and lectured at several institutes like the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht and Barcelona, The Academie für Weiterbildung in Meissen and the Maastricht School of Management (MSM)

Jenny is currently chief executive of 150 - member strong Chemicals Northwest and leads a small team in supporting and promoting the regional chemical industry in the NW of England. She attained a first class chemistry degree at Liverpool University and went on to complete her PhD in the same subject. Her career started as a chemist at Laporte Chemicals before joining Solvay Interox as R & D Group Manager. In 1995 Jenny joined Wentworth Consultants as a management consultant and ultimately a director, working with a diverse range of companies on leadership, teamwork and communication, before taking up her current post in 2007. Since this time at Chemicals Northwest Jenny has worked tirelessly on behalf of the private sector in such areas as securing funding from the public sector to improve the efficiency of chemical companies. She has facilitated networking and the sharing of best practice between companies and overseen the general communication, dissemination of information and events while working closely with partners such as universities, service providers and research institutes. She is also on the board of the National Skills Academy for the Process Industries and a Trustee of Catalyst Science and Discovery Centre.

Professor José Santos started an academic career in engineering in the early seventies, but soon after moved into the managerial world. Twenty years later, José decided to retire from an intense and successful executive career after he held for ten years the position of MD of an Italian multinational group. In 1995 he moved from Italy to INSEAD and devoted himself again to scholarly work.

His research and teaching focus on the management of the multinational enterprise, particularly on the management of global integration and global innovation. José is Professor of Practice in Global Management (Affiliated) at INSEAD, France; Visiting Scholar at MIT Sloan, USA; and “Professor Catedrático Convidado” at UCP, Portugal. He regularly presents in conferences around the world and works with top management teams of multinational corporations from Europe, Americas, and Japan.

Dr. Maex obtained her PhD in Electrical Engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Having started her academic career as a Research Assistant (1982-1987) she became Research Director (1987), Assistant Professor at K.U. Leuven (1989), then Professor (1998) and finally Full Professor (2003).

Between 2002-2005 she was a Member of K.U. Leuven's Research Council and Founder-Coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus Programme on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. In 2005 she was appointed Vice-Rector for Science, Engineering and Technology at K.U. Leuven. Meanwhile at IMEC (Interuniversity Microelectronics Center), of which she is a fellow since 2001, she was Strategic Research Adviser for the Division on Semiconductor Process and Device Technology (2001-2005) and Programme Director of the IMEC Industrial Affiliate Programme (IIAP) on Nanotechnology (2004-2005).

Dr. Maex is currently Vice-Rector for Science, Engineering and Technology and a full Professor at K.U. Leuven, where she is also responsible for human resources and diversity policy.

Klaus Haasis, CEO - MFG Baden-Württemberg

Klaus Haasis can look back on more than 35 years of experience in designing communication processes and relationship systems. He held jobs in the Creative Industries, the ICT-Sector as well as in the chemical and pharmaceutical Industry. The media pioneer has been CEO of MFG Baden-Württemberg since its establishment in 1995. Today MFG is one of the leading innovation agencies in Europe fostering creative industries, ICT and media. Klaus Haasis has successfully built up the business initiative Baden-Württemberg: Connected (www.bwcon.de) and Lisog, the Open Source Solutions Network (www.lisog.org).

Klaus Haasis is member of the Board of Directors of TCI – the global practitioners’ network for competitiveness, clusters and innovation based in Barcelona (www.tci-network.org).

Leo Van de Loock (° Antwerp on 15 November 1960) is currently director of Business projects at IWT Flanders.

After studying Master of Engineering (construction) at the University of Gent, he obtained a PhD in construction engineering at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1989. Additional, Mr Van de Loock obtained an MBA at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in 1996.

He joined IWONL (former Belgian Innovation Agency) in 1989. In 1991 , with the start of IWT, the Flemish Innovation Agency, he became programme director. Since 1998 he is a member of the management committee of IWT.

Domains of interest : ICT, environmental technology, public support of innovation, innovation dynamics

Lucia Seel, Clusterland Upper Austria

Lucia Seel joined Clusterland Upper Austria in 2004 and is EU projects coordinator. She gathered experience in the management of European funded projects like Interreg IIIC ( as coordinator of the Innofire project and partner in the CLOE project, FP6– INNO net CEE ClusterNetwork (partner), CIP: Europe INNOVA – partner in the European Cluster Observatory project and PRO INNO Europe – The European Cluster Excellence Initiative. She is also responsible for the international delegations visiting Clusterland and for the management of the Upper Austrian Cluster Academy. Currently she coordinates the setting up of the European Cluster Collaboration Platform. Before Clusterland, she got extensive international experience in her position as export area manager for South-East Asia and part of Europe at a multinational company producing high end consumer goods. She also worked in the communication business (with Saatchi&Saatchi in Romania). She holds a university degree in economical cybernetics & statistical mathematics from the University of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania. She attended university courses on international marketing and management at the University in Linz, Austria. She is fluent in 5 languages: English, German, French, Italian and Romanian (mother tongue).

Marc Pattinson is Managing Director of inno TSD based in Sophia Antipolis in France which specializes in the development and management of regional development and innovation strategies. He studied in the UK at the London School of Economics where he obtained a Masters in economics and urban and regional planning. He is currently responsible for the Secretariat services and animation team of the European Cluster Alliance. This work is undertaken as part of the TACTICS INNO-Net project funded by DG Enterprise Industry. The ECA Secretariat activities include the preparation of cluster policy workshops, testing and launching transnational cluster cooperation initiatives and helping SMEs participate in cluster collaboration projects.

Marc previously worked as part of the INNO Learning Platform team and between 2008-10 he worked alongside a number of cluster oriented INNO nets such as INNET, CLUNET, BSR and CEE.

Mario Calderini holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Manchester and a MSc in Engineering from Politecnico di Torino. He is Full Professor of Strategy and Innovation Management at Politecnico di Torino where he is also Deputy Director of the Doctoral School. Mario Calderini sits in the board of directors of the Italian National Agency for Innovation and from 2005 to July 2010 he was the President of Finpiemonte, the regional development agency of Piemonte Region, managing a 300 million euro yearly budget.

He is now senior advisor to the Regional Ministry for Research and innovation. He is also a member of the European Patent Office Academy Advisory Board. Mario Calderini’s main academic interest is in the economics and management of innovation.

His numerous publications in highly ranked international journals cover several topics: technology and innovation policies, empirical studies on the determinants of innovative activity, technology and knowledge transfer, the strategic management of intellectual property rights and finance for innovation.

Mats Williams is president of The Paper Province, a cluster organisation for the pulp and paper industry in the Swedish region of Värmland and its surroundings. Under Mats William’s leadership The Paper Province has developed from a small project comprising seven members into one of Europe’s most innovative clusters – according to European Cluster Observatory – with more than 90 member companies.

Through a clear communication and marketing strategy focused on PR, Mats William has managed to make The Paper Province known as the good example on positive cluster effects, recognised by regional and national public actors as well as the global pulp and paper industry. In 2009 Mats Williams was awarded Opinion Maker of the Year by the Swedish forest industry. Mats Williams has frequently been invited to speak at national and international conferences on how clusters can contribute to innovation and growth for businesses and regions.

Nathalie Stephenne obtained a degree in Geography followed by a Master degree in Development Studies from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL), Belgium. In the private I-mage consult company, she had an experience in database management and mapping on an EU project. She presented her PhD thesis untitled dynamic simulation model to understand land-use change processes in the Sudano-sahelian region (SALU – Sahelian Land Use) in 2002, supervised by Pr E. Lambin.

Laureate of ARSOM in 2000, this foundation published her PhD thesis in 2003. In collaboration with the CEH Wallingford, UK, the integration of SALU results in GCM simulations estimated the impact of these changes on climate. She joined the IGEAT, University of Brussels, on a Belgian Science Policy funded and user-oriented project that compared classical and object-oriented classifications of very-high-resolution satellite imagery.

Engaged at the JRC, Italy, IPSC in 2005 with a post-doctoral research position, she has been involved in the JRC institutional research activity related to modelling of EU Border Permeability and EU Neighbourhood Stability. She is currently project manager in WALPHOT, Belgium.

Nick has considerable experience in the environmental technologies and the services sector. He joined Envirolink Northwest in 2003 after nine years working as an environmental consultant with Enviros (previously March Consulting). Whilst at Enviros, he specialised in advising businesses on process efficiency, waste minimisation, environmental management, waste management and developing markets for recycled wastes.

Nick graduated from Leeds University with a chemical engineering degree and started his career in research and development with Johnson Matthey. He worked on diverse technologies such as car exhaust catalysts, fuel cells and high temperature plasma catalyst recycling before moving on to join Procter & Gamble in Manchester, to manage an industrial chemicals manufacturing plant. He has also worked as a hazardous waste management engineer for a number of companies, including SRM (previously Solrec) in Morecambe, and as a contract process engineer on pharmaceutical and medical waste treatment plant designs.

With a rich background in industry restructuring, regional development and SMEs support, Pavla Bruskova has been involved in the cluster concept implementation in the Czech Republic since its beginning in 2002. She gave rise to the first Czech cluster organisation in the engineering sector in March 2003; took part in the preparation of the National Cluster Strategy and Cluster Guide; carried out mapping, feasibility studies and facilitation of wood, IT, hydrogen technologies, automotive and tourism cluster organisations.

In 2006, she founded the ClusterNet regional initiative and was managing it while in the position of the CEO of the Regional Development Agency Ostrava up to June 2010. She took part in a number of European cluster projects and mentoring activities. She established the National Cluster Association in the Czech Republic and became its first president in March 2010.

She is a member of the Advisory Board of the European Cluster Observatory and The Competitiveness Institute.

Rene Tõnnisson is working as member of executive board of Baltic Innovation Agency. He is also member of European Cluster Policy Group (ECPG) advising European Commission on future European cluster policy. He has gained significant experience in innovation management and cluster development. He has been previously working as member of executive boards of Tartu Science Park, Tartu Biotechnology Park, Institute of Baltic Studies and Connect Estonia. He has been responsible for wide range of cluster, innovation, technology and business related activities.

He has been manager of Estonian mCluster, a cluster initiative in mobile and location based services, he was the founding member of European cluster regions network Cluster Linked over Europe (CLOE). As the project Coordinator for Estonian Innovation Relay Centre (IRC) he was member of IRC Cluster Working Group and Cluster Expert Group for Innovating Regions in Europe (IRE). Rene Tõnnisson holds a Master degree in Public Administration and Policy from University of Tartu, Estonia and Certificat d’Etudes Politiques from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Strasbourg (Sciences Po), Université de Robert Schuman, France.

He has also been studying at University of Cambridge and European University Institute.

Simone Hagenauer holds a master degree in Law from Karl-Franzens University Graz/Austria and specialised in European common law and environmental law. Since 2003 project manager at ecoplus, the Lower Austrian business agency, she has been responsible for international business cooperation projects as well as international cluster development projects. Key areas: Cross-border and trans-national cooperation and networks (ETC, FP6 CSA, CIP Pro Inno), cluster policy, international cluster co-operation and cluster manager skills. As a member of the CEE-ClusterNetwork Management Team, a strategic European project for joint cluster development in Central and Eastern Europe, she was in charge of the development of a Joint Action Plan and a Paneuropean survey on cluster manager tasks, skills and qualification needs. Currently she is involved in the European Cluster Excellence Initiative. Simone Hagenauer is a member of the global cluster network TCI and the European Cluster Alliance.

During 2004-2009 Sven Gunnar Edlund was Director and Head of the Innovation Actors Division at VINNOVA, The Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems. Edlunds responsibility has been to support the development of internationally competitive research and innovation environments in Sweden, internationally competitive clusters, commercialization of research and growth in SMEs. The design of the cluster program VINNVÄXT was done under Edlunds leadership.

Sven Gunnar Edlund is today working as Senior Advisor within VINNOVA. One of Edlunds responsibilities is to be one of the coordinators of Priority area 7, Research and Innovation, within the Baltic Sea Strategy Action plan. As Senior Advisor Edlund also supports VINNOVA in its leadership of the Flagship project on Research and Innovation, Transnational Clusters and SME networks within The Baltic Sea Strategy Action plan.

Edlund, being a physicist from The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, has
had a long career in research and innovation at The Swedish Pulp and Paper Research Institute in Stockholm, including, during 15 years (1979 -1994), holding the position as Director of Research and Head of the Physics Division.

Zeljko Erkapic is currently holding the position of CEO in Agricultural Equipment Cluster Ltd. This cluster project was initiated within Croatian Employer's Association by founding National Centre for Clusters in the beginning of 2007 which included another 4 cluster initiatives apart from Agricultural Equipment Cluster. Working on that project in structuring and organizing the cluster almost for two and half years, Agricultural Equipment Cluster separated from National Centre for Clusters in July 2009 and formally was registered as Limited Liability Company. Before coming to current position, in his career Zeljko worked in several distinguished firms mainly as CEO or commercial manager. His prior education is primarily focused on economics as he graduated the Foreign Trade Faculty at Zagreb University. He also has a great deal of experience in export and import businesses. In recent years, and after 20 years of experience in the field of economy, he graduated at the postgraduate program of Entrepreneurship at University of J.J. Strossmayer in Osijek. Zeljko is also active in a scientific project ‘Gaining economic prosperity by strengthening regional competitiveness’ started by Faculty of Economics in Osijek. He coauthored several scientific studies at the same faculty. Since summer 2009, Zeljko has actively participated as a lecturer at Public Relations and Media Studies Graduate School ‘Kairos’ in Zagreb teaching introductory program called ‘Entrepreneurship Basics’.