Silvia Jirásková, Head of the Business Development Department at TC Praha, said, "We are very pleased to have been able to support the National Cluster Association's efforts to provide Czech assessors for the certification of the Bronze Level of Cluster Excellence. This is a concrete result of TC Praha's long-term cooperation with the National Cluster Association and its members - successful Czech clusters."

The training was led by the highly experienced Helmut Kergel, Director of the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA), who successfully guided five candidates - two Czech, two Latvian and one Ukrainian - through the three-day certification process.

In the case of the Czech Republic, it concerns the first two ECEI cluster evaluators whose certification will enable Czech clusters to have easier access to the bronze level of this internationally recognised standard. Jiří Herinek, the President of the National Cluster Association, which initiated the training, evaluated the training and its benefits, stating: "The National Cluster Association organised the training of two auditors from the Czech Republic in response to the request of the Ministry of Industry and Trade so that projects applying for support from the new Cooperation - Clusters call within the Operational Programme Technology and Application for Competitiveness (OPTAK) would have the mark of cluster excellence. Without the training of two Czech auditors, the access to this certification, which demonstrates the quality of cluster organisation, would be significantly limited for Czech clusters."

We congratulate Kateřina Podaná from Klastr Mechatronika and Anna Marytová from the cluster Nanoprogress.