In March 2020, the European Commission published a new strategy to support Europe‘s industry in the green and digital transition and increase the resilience of our European ecosystems. It aims at driving Europe‘s competitiveness and its strategic autonomy. The COVID-19 crisis has challenged us as a society and our industry in many ways has disrupted our value chains and has accelerated trends, of which many have come to stay. Therefore, the European Commission will update the Industrial Strategy with the learnings from the crisis.

The European Clusters Alliance has just published its recommendations for the update of the EU Industrial Policy emphasizing the role of clusters as generators of the industrial ecosystems for recovery. The recommendations contain contributions from the industrial cluster community in Europe and were submitted to the „Industrial Forum“ of the Commission (the high-level expert group with representatives of the Member States and stakeholders from industry organizations).

Lessons are drawn from the COVID-19 crisis of relevance for our industrial strategy

- Lesson 1: Resilience as an important property of the network

- Lesson 2: Dependence on global supply chains and the       importance of European SMEs

- Lesson 3: Acceleration of trends and changes in behavior

- Lesson 4: Bring investments and funds to the ground

- Lesson 5: Skills are key

- Lesson 6: Strengthen social aspects

- Lesson 7: Functioning public bodies and framework

You may find the full position paper here.  

Main pillars of EU Industrial Strategy