Clusters and regional development – Regional Helix 2019

This Conference resulted from a joint organisation of the Research Centre of the School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (CIICESI), the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco and the NECE (research centre, Department of Economics and Management of the University of Beira Interior). Several themes were discussed among which the inter-relationship between industry and academia.

Several speakers were present, namely Luís Farinha, from the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Pedro Rocha from Produtech, Ana Barros from Inesc.Tec - iMan Norte Hub, Frederico Ferreira from Forum Oceano and Deolinda Silva from PortugalFoods.

Concentration - geographical, sectoral, specialisation and interdependence - as the central dimension of clusters played a central role in the discussion, underlining the importance of the balance between cooperation and competition, as well as the need to work and interdependence capable of generating synergies (academia/industry) and contributing to the economic growth of companies and to the development of territories.