Lucie Renou: The policy on competitiveness clusters: shaping regions

Public policy aimed at stimulating regional economic development is increasingly focused on promoting innovation and the knowledge economy, both of which are seen as essential for enhancing the competitiveness of both businesses and regions. This thesis examines a French policy introduced in 2004 within this framework of competitiveness: the competitiveness clusters policy.

This initiative, situated at the intersection of industrial and spatial planning policies, aims to foster innovative and collaborative practices among the business, higher education and research sectors within a given region through the establishment of ‘competitiveness clusters’. We focus on a hitherto little-studied aspect of these competitiveness clusters: their impact on regional governance. Indeed, based on a comparative analysis of six case studies from the south-west, we show that the clusters appear to function as intermediary structures, certainly promoting collaborative action between economic and scientific actors within the same region, but also and above all between political and administrative actors who were previously unaccustomed to working together. In this respect, the cluster policy is transforming the modes of regional public management.

The thesis therefore explores two aspects: firstly, the way in which the State conceives of competitiveness clusters as new spaces that revitalise interactions between economic and political-administrative actors (from different sectors and at different levels); and secondly, the way in which these clusters emerge and consolidate as fully-fledged entities with their own functioning and a role to play in territorial governance. The case of competitiveness clusters thus allows us to revisit the concept of territory, which no longer coincides with the definition of a constituency. Drawing on the work of Claude Raffestin, we consider clusters as discontinuous territories, organised in networks, each developing its own specific functioning ‘in the pursuit of the greatest possible autonomy given the system’s resources’.

Members of the jury

• Alain Bourdin, Professor Emeritus, Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, Examiner
• Gilles Crague, Research Director, CIRED/École des Ponts ParisTech, Director
• Christophe Demazière, Professor, François Rabelais University, Tours; Rapporteur
• Marie-Pierre Lefeuvre, Professor, François Rabelais University, Tours; Examiner
• André Torre, Research Director, INRA; Rapporteur