Harvard Business School students will study the case of cluster policy in Catalonia and the impact it has had on the competitiveness of Catalan companies. This was announced by the Minister for Business and Labour, Roger Torrent i Ramió, and the Harvard Business School expert Christian Ketels, at a meeting with the presidents of the Catalan clusters and representatives of the ecosystem.

The students who will study the Catalan case specialise in microeconomics and business competitiveness studies on MBA courses and master’s degrees in Public Administration (MPA); in addition, alumni of these courses and students from a hundred or so international universities that collaborate with Harvard Business School will also have access to the study of the Catalan case.

The Minister for Business and Labour, Roger Torrent i Ramió, said during the meeting that “cluster policy is a successful asset and is very important for the Government and for the competitiveness of the Catalan economy. Over the past three years, 400 new companies have joined the clusters, gaining strength for the future”. Torrent stressed that “companies increasingly have a business culture of greater teamwork, of looking at their environment and making an effort of generosity to work together to find more efficient solutions for everyone”. In this respect, the head of Business and Labour said that “we are attentive to the dynamism and plurality of the Catalan business fabric, which is why we are open to incorporating new clusters as new business sectors consolidate in the future”.

For his part, the Harvard Business School expert underlined that “Catalonia is a global benchmark in cluster policy. Many regions of the world can learn from how public policies and cluster structures have adapted to economic and global changes over the past thirty years”. Ketels, a world authority in the field of business competitiveness, explained that “today, Catalonia has a structure of clusters that operate from the private sector, while the government, through ACCIÓ, supports them with an overall view of which sectors best characterise the Catalan economic fabric. This policy is therefore a clear and effective example that can serve as a lesson for other regions”.

The case study analyses the evolution of cluster policy in Catalonia promoted by ACCIÓ -the agency for business competitiveness of the Ministry of Business and Labour- since 1992. It thus highlights that ‘few initiatives have been sustained over such a long period of time’ and the ‘strong indications that this success in keeping the programme active reflects the value it brings to Catalonia and its economy’.

Indeed, the leather cluster’s collaboration with ACCIÓ dates back to the early years of cluster policy in Catalonia. Together with minister Antoni Subirà, considered the intellectual father of cluster policy in Catalonia, and with Emilià Duch, a transformative project was implemented to address the challenges facing the leather sector in the early 1990s. The public-private collaboration begun at that time, based on a new strategic approach to remaining competitive, led to the construction and commissioning of the Igualadina de Depuració i Recuperació (IDR) treatment plant, one of the most illustrative examples of the advantage of belonging to a cluster.

ACCIÓ’s work with the leather cluster was recognised worldwide, as it was the first case of a Catalan cluster to be studied at the prestigious American university of Harvard.

The case of the leather cluster at Harvard was published in February 1995 and a second part of the case was updated years later by the international business school IESE.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting and transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.