University : the key to the competitiveness of the ICT cluster in Waterloo, Canada

The Waterloo region, which is located to the west of Toronto and is home to 455 companies employing 13,000 people, is one of the most dynamic sources of high-tech activity in Canada and North America specialising in information and communication technology. In his celebrated analyses, Michael Porter put forward the claim that the reason for the efficiency of these clusters was their proximity to companies, a proximity which stimulated numerous collaborations and fierce competition between them. But this is not the case in Waterloo : in general, even the smallest companies are outward-looking and develop few ties with each other in the region. Allison Bramwell demonstrates that the cluster owes much of its success to the role played by the University of Waterloo in creating an extremely attractive and talented job market and developing original ties between both the business and academic worlds.