How does a competitiveness cluster benefit from assessment ?

The French policy of competitiveness clusters was launched in 2005 and is now in Stage 3. This is the phase when each of the clusters is in the process of designing its strategy for 2013-2018 and negotiating its performance contract with the public authorities. Since its launch‚ this original public policy of supporting innovation has incited a large number of analyses and impact studies as well as two large-scale assessments in 2008 and 2012. Patrick Haouat‚ associate manager at Erdyn and president of the association of consultants specialised in innovation‚ actively took part in the second assessment and helped several clusters with their strategic direction. Both Patrick Haouat and Patrick Cocquet, general manager for the Cap Digital cluster‚ discuss these clusters from an unusual perspective and question how the clusters benefit from this assessment. Their talk is also an opportunity to determine what is or should be a good means of assessment.