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Cluster Policy and Cluster Governance in Croatia

How to regain competitiveness, foster industrial renewal and exploit new economic opportunities has become the key question for European policy makers in these testing times of rapid globalisation and economic transformation. Cluster policies are of a huge importance for cluster emergence, growth and development. Generally, clusters have to be built according to specific economic and social characteristics in each country. Each country should create its own cluster policy according to its situation concerning the development of clusters and its specific needs. So, generally, according to the literature on cluster policies, no standard cluster approach exists. These policies should be „tailored“ by national governments and not just imitated from other countries. Their design and implementation is closely connected with the model of governance. In this paper, specific situation according to cluster policies and the governance of regional clusters in Croatia would be analysed. After the analysis of existing national policies, the different models of regional policies and specific models of their governance should be evaluated. The crucial problem of clusters development in Croatia is regional and national non-coordination, according to cluster policies and their governance. The purpose of his paper is to present how cluster policies and the governance should be created in the small country - Croatia, in which regional disparities are very high. Dynamic bottom-up and interactive process between policy makers and practitioners in Croatia does not exist. National Coordination Body - National Cluster Centre stopped to work in 2010. During the last decade, there were significant efforts of Ministry of economy and of Croatian Association of Entrepreneurs, but the National Council on Competitiveness does not exist. Some Regional development agencies made some initiatives on clusters, but, although some institutions know why clusters are important, there is no co-operation, coordination and no synergy between actors, nor mutual trust between them. Our conclusion is that in Croatia there is a strong need to define institutional instruments for the policies implementation and monitoring of the whole process. Cluster development asks for the new way of thinking and of acting between all stakeholders. The government bodies, as the creators of cluster development policies (i.e. integrated industrial and innovation policies) play a crucial role in fostering cluster development. In Croatia a huge task is still to be done, but it should be fast.

Cluster policy; Cluster governance; Cooperation; Croatia; Strategy

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