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A regional network of excellence for every company

Posted by Invest in France Agency in Innovation and R&D the 8 July 2010

France is becoming more and more attractive as an investment location. Every region and every company, no matter how big or small, is now covered by networks for business, science and technology cooperation. And these networks are not exclusively reserved for French companies. Foreign investors are also very welcome to benefit from an innovation-friendly environment.

The latest creation is a network of business mini-clusters designed just for SMEs. They bring together SMEs and micro-enterprises, usually from the same sector, and unite them around a joint strategy. They are designed to boost competitiveness in France’s rural areas by providing SMEs with pooled facilities and services. The businesses can also align themselves with large companies and stakeholders in training, research and innovation…

Photo credit: DATAR

The French Ministry for Rural and Regional Development launched an initial call for projects and nominated 42 mini-clusters. The success of this call recently prompted a second call. About 60 new candidates may be successful by October 2010, which would bring the number of mini-clusters to 100 by 2011. The Ministry will provide them with €100,000 in financial backing per year.

The mini-clusters complement the network of innovation clusters, which have also undergone some changes. The French government recently approved 6 new innovation clusters specializing in environmental technologies like water cycle quality management for the world-class candidate cluster EAU (Languedoc-Roussillon region), waste recycling for TEAM² (Nord-Pas-de-Calais) and sustainable construction for ENERGIVIE (Alsace).

These newcomers mean that all of France’s regions can now provide companies with high-level support networks for collaboration and R&D support with priority access to public- and private-sector research centers.