Industry Clusters project
Project title
Promoting Knowledge Economy Organisations and Innovative Work: Regional influences on Knowledge based Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) clusters in Australia and Germany.
While carried out prior to the formation of the CTLW, the Centre, through the CTLW members of the original project team will continue to apply research learnings and the resulting framework to assist regional areas to facilitate knowledge-based SME clusters and evaluate the contribution of clusters to regional economic outcomes.
Project overview
In both Australia and Germany many regional areas have experienced economic and social decline. Clusters offer a means of fostering local economic development thereby arresting regional social and economic deterioration. The research focused on those clusters that rely on knowledge transferral between organisations. Through identifying the drivers and impediments to the formation of knowledge based clusters, the research provided practical guidance to regionally-based organisations to assist in the successful formation and maintenance of clusters. In doing so, the research helped identify how clusters that rely on the sharing of organisational knowledge may promote greater regional employment possibilities.
Research method
This project built upon a well established existing collaboration between project researchers, based on research networking, videoconferencing and dedicated web pages combined with a program of cross-national visits to enable researcher exchange and research interchange between both researchers and the organisations involved in the research. Workshops for policymakers, business organisations and academic institutions in each location supplemented the collaboration process.
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