Europe’s industrial clusters mobilise to fight coronavirus

The Business Planet team is mobilized to help you better understand how entrepreneurs are facing the coronavirus epidemic. European industrial clusters are particularly active in the fight against the Coronavirus.

The objective is to innovate, to bring new products quickly onto the market, to shake up production processes in record time and of course to share information. 800 European clusters have all hands on deck! Here is the "battle plan" of the European clusters:

• Industrial clusters are key actors in the industrial ecosystem, fostering interactions between large companies, SMEs, universities and other research centres and public authorities
• In this crisis, their work is essential to spot market shortages and facilitate much-needed interactions between producers, suppliers and delivery companies to increase production of medical supplies.
• A couple of weeks ago, the European Commission launched an informal call to the European industrial clusters, with the support of the European Clusters Alliance (12 national associations of industrial clusters), to map available production capacity for masks, PPE and ventilators. In record time it got over 1100 offers from companies offering options to produce these medical supplies
• The European Cluster Collaboration Platform, supported by the European Commission, hosts 800 industrial clusters from all across Europe. It has created a COVID-19 Industrial Clusters Response Portal with key information from industry and a forum to share experience and ask for or offer help.

Useful links

European Clusters Collaboration platform

EU Coronavirus response to entrepreneurs

Euronews interview with EU Commissioner for the internal Market, Thierry Breton

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