Financing cluster initiatives

In the last two decades hundreds of cluster initiatives have been launched involving virtually all regions of the world and their number is growing. Cluster initiatives are viewed as conscious actions taken by various actors to create or strengthen clusters. There are multiple relevant actors, and they may relate to each other in different ways. Governments and other public authorities are known to be responsible for most cluster initiatives, although there is a marked geographical variation. At the end of the 1990s, industrial and regional policy increasingly concentrated on stimulating clusters and clustering processes in many EU member states using different forms of support. The paper describes the rationale for regional cluster initiatives in general and presents different approaches of countries to the financing the specific programmes for cluster development. Although public funds should not be viewed as systematic aid and should comply with the State aid regulations, experts recognise that they are often needed to support start-up projects, networking, information, research, education, and specialised infrastructure. At the end of paper the Czech way to financing cluster initiatives is presented based on government programme with the financial contribution of EU Structural Funds.