Sustainability Initiatives

Internationalisation

Regionally networked, globally successful

The Leading-Edge Cluster is creating a unique technology platform for intelligent technical systems, which companies can use to increase the reliability, resource efficiency and user-friendliness of their products and production systems. On a national level, the activities and skills of the Leading-Edge Cluster were already arousing high interest in the business and science worlds. However, they had not yet achieved sufficient visibility on an international level. Moreover, the cluster partners were only partially active internationally, but recognised great opportunities to strengthen their market position and performance there. The main goal of the cluster strategy was defined as taking a leading position among global competitors in the area of intelligent technical systems. In order to achieve this goal, the internationalisation and image profile of it's OWL had to be expanded.

The goal of the internationalisation sustainability measure was to develop activities and offers to increase the profile of the cluster in the international business and science worlds. Numerous partners joined together into a technology network to achieve this.

Firstly, benchmarking was conducted to compare the strengths and weaknesses of the cluster with international reference regions, using criteria such as technology skills, cluster structure and market position. Based on that, appropriate regions and clusters that complement the structure and competencies of it's OWL were identified. Cooperation agreements were then concluded with them, and joint activities such as workshops, conferences and exchanges of junior staff were developed. An international marketing concept employing specific instruments, such as congresses, trade fairs and key media, presented the competencies of it's OWL in selected regions and target markets. Finally, a competency center for internationalisation brought together cluster partners and international partners to develop cooperative projects. The results and experiences were continuously evaluated and integrated into the further development of activities and offers.

The project strengthened the internationalisation and profile of the cluster. Cluster partners received contacts to new cooperation partners and access to new markets. This made an important contribution towards achieving the goals of the Leading-Edge Cluster strategies. Through the development of business models, the approaches continued to run and be available to the cluster partners after the end of the support period in order to continue to drive the initiated process. The approaches and experiences were transferrable to other branches and clusters, such as medical technology and the plastics industry.

Project duration
01 July 2014 - 30 June 2017

Would you like to know more about it's OWL's internationalisation? Have look at our current activities.