Regional Innovation Clusters

Twenty years ago, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter introduced the concept of regional clusters - geographic concentrations of interconnected firms and supporting or coordinating organizations. Ten years later, a number of states had adopted the concept. Now, on the federal level, members of the executive branch and Congress are seriously looking at “regional innovation clusters” as a framework for structuring the nation’s economic development activities.

In addition, in the wake of the recent recession, a number of business leaders, mainstream commentators, and policy analysts have been saying the nation needs a different kind of growth model that depends less on bubbles and consumption and more on the production of lasting value in metropolitan economies and the super-productive clusters within them.

Why is the concept of clusters popular again? Perhaps some of the concept’s relevance is due to its non-partisan concern with the mechanics of value creation in local economies (metropolitan or rural, high-tech or manufacturing). Another attraction may be that clusters (whether it be the Vermont cheesemaking cluster or a cluster like the Silicon Valley technology cluster) are all about synergies and efficiencies, and they don’t tend to cost too much. It may be that the most timely attraction is that the new prominence of regional innovation clusters reflects something deeper: a positive interest in locating a more grounded, realistic way to think about the economy and development efforts so as to put both on a more productive footing.

For more information about regional innovation clusters, please visit:

     NEC&T: Economic Development Issues: Regional Innovation Clusters