PLENARY SESSION

ICT

Stuart Webb

The Birmingham experience: the West Midlands ICT Cluster

Stuart Webb, head of innovation clusters and ICT policy, Advantage West Midlands, described the experience of the West Midlands—a territory which is socioeconomically similar to Catalonia—as a textbook example of collaboration among small and medium-sized companies, universities, and local and state government. Its success stems from in-house studies geared at predicting its strengths, and from external studies aimed at identifying and meeting the demands of consolidated and future markets. Its strong strategic management—based on the three axes of networking, innovation, and skills development—subjects project proposals to a rigorous selection process before approving any funding; those which are accepted then receive the Cluster’s full support.

KEY IDEAS

• Identify your strengths
Small and medium clusters "can not compete with Silicon Valley”; to be successful, they must employ prospective studies and identify, improve and fully exploit their strengths. For the West Midlands Cluster, this is focused on the companies that develop ICT and on their markets, whether consolidated or future. The Cluster endeavours for excellence in innovation, which yields major regional and national benefits in the mid-term.

• Clear strategy
The second success factor in the West Midlands Cluster is related to organic functioning and its strategic management and is based on three elements: networking among all players; innovation in close collaboration with universities; and skills development.

• Converting weaknesses into opportunities
Lastly, the Cluster has been able to convert its scarce public funding into an opportunity to better evaluate projects for financing and reconsider the very concept of the cluster, especially strategies, which are re-examined every three years.