Within the framework of the #EU4Business programme with funding from the EU and the German Government, the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance is holding a final meeting in 2023 for ambassadors Professionals4Ukraine.

On December 18, this year’s last online meeting of Professionals4Ukraine program ambassadors will take place. In preparation for this meeting, an overview of the main results of the program in 2023 is offered to the attention of the UCA clusters and our ambassadors.

About the Professionals4Ukraine program

The program has had several iterations since its inception in June 2022. The very name of the program belongs to Luigi de Bernardini, CEO of Italian ‘Autoware’, a member of the Board of the Control System Integrator Association (CSIA) from the US, which in April 2022 called on its members to support APPAU, a co-founder of UCA. In June, as such initiatives increased, the executive directorate of UCA formed a network development program in which the most active foreign professionals from different countries began to join one by one. By the end of 2022, the program included 13 ambassadors and Award Professionals4Ukraine 2022, which describes in detail their contribution to the support of Ukrainian clusters.

In 2023, new ambassadors are added to the program, and a more systematic one is released in the August program description. It follows that our foreign ambassadors offer the UCA several valuable services for the internationalization of clusters and their participants, including:

• Organization and implementation of targeted events with the participation of Ukrainian clusters (conferences, webinars, business visits to EU countries, etc.).
• Integration and joining of Ukrainian clusters to European or global networks and/or development projects.
• Involvement in grant projects or even providing direct financial assistance to strengthen the sustainability of cluster initiatives in Ukraine.
• Connecting with other funding sources or influential organizations that can assist (networking functions, matchmaking, etc.).
• Advisory assistance to clusters and their participants.

An essential point in all these initiatives is the fact that this assistance is provided voluntarily. Solidarity with Ukraine, with our professional associations in joint struggle and victory, is the #1 value that unites program participants.

Cooperation in 2023: the best examples

The list below provides the most significant initiatives and their examples, which were developed in the UCA together with the ambassadors

1. Formation of bilateral cooperation programs with Ukraine by market segments. The ambassadors of 2 countries — the Czech Republic and Poland, de facto- started forming these programs in the current year. The most distinguished:
   • Tereza Shamanova, CEO of CzechInno, organized three business missions of UCA clusters to the Czech Republic concerning Smart.City, Smart.Industry and Cyber-security. The total cost of the trips is over 80,000 euros, and two more business missions are planned for 2024. We are also part of the Czech government’s funding programs that support Recovery projects in Ukraine.
   • Adrian Jasik, the head of the ecosystem program of the Polish state agency Industry 4.0 FPPP organized two study tours, — 1st in September for the policymakers of the UCA and the 2nd — recently in December, to the Special Economic Zone in Legnica. Separately, thanks to the Košice forum in March, we established good contacts with the Kraków clusters — Andrzej Czulak (cluster of composite materials) and Irena Loboska (sustainable infrastructure cluster), which in turn attracted the leadership of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. Exchanges led to a whole series of exchanges between UCA clusters and Polish organizations, and among them, the biggest event in 2023 was the conference in Lviv. 

All these exchanges strongly pushed our clusters for partnerships with Czech and Polish firms and organizations. The format of bilateral cooperation for 2024 was also discussed with the ambassadors, and it is very important that we already have support for this initiative from the governments of both countries. We are talking about entering specific projects in a number of segments in Smart industries.

2. Deepening of cooperation between clusters of UCA and foreign partners.

• Mike Richardson is a champion in this field, he is the project manager of the German OptecBB cluster. Mike visited Ukraine 5 times in 2023 and, in fact, initiated the creation of the Photonics cluster initiative in Ukraine. Mike’s activity served as a trigger for the activation and consolidation of our specialists in the Dual-use segments, as well as Medical clusters. This powerful influence, de facto, formed a new trend in the UCA of how our foreign ambassadors can influence and even shape Ukrainian cluster initiatives. See detailed description about Mike Richardson’s success story by link. 
• Ludovico Lopez de Cada, the director of the Spanish Gaia HUB, quickly became a partner of the UCA, offering a connection with the Spanish state agency INSIBE. UCA connected it with the state agency responsible for cybersecurity in Ukraine — SSSCIP, with which APPAU has long partnered. The agreement between the partners was signed in June 2023 in Paris, and two groups of SSSCIP specialists have already been trained in Spain.
• Florian Andrews, the leading expert of the German consulting agency Gruner Hering, first visited several cities in Ukraine in June and was a co-organizer and active participant at the Lviv conference. Florian contributed to developing the pro-European sustainable development agenda, demonstrating his full readiness to provide the best European experience and practices to Ukrainian partners. He spent several weeks in Ukraine and helped our cluster communities of Podillia, Odesa, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia free of charge.
• Alex Chausovsky, Jose Rivera, and Luigi de Bernandini continued the active promotion of APPAU at the annual conference of the American CSIA. This association is currently the only “window” to the US and Canadian markets for IAM and APPAU clusters from the UCA. The partners introduced a new mechanism of honorary membership, opening up new financial support opportunities.
• Heads of the global medical network ECHAlliance Brian O’Connor and Andy Bleaden, at the end of 2022, joined the medical clusters of the UCA to the global network of this organization and, in 2023, organized a series of publications and webinars supporting the rehabilitation program of the UCA.

3. Development of cooperation with EU cluster associations

• For the European Commission, it is worth noting the constant support from Marek Przeor, responsible for developing clusters in DG GROW, and Antonio de Novo, President of the European Cluster Alliance.
• As a result of the signing of the Memorandum in Košice with 5 countries in 2023, we also continued the active cooperation of cluster associations — Krzysztof Krystowski (Poland), Daniel Cosnita (Romania) and Jiri Herinek (Czech Republic). UCA performed at the events of the specified countries, and, in particular, the most representative was our delegation at the Cluster Meet Regions in Iasi.

4. Involvement of Ukrainian clusters in joint projects

• The above-mentioned ambassadors actively involve UCA and our clusters in joint projects in pan-European programs. Our clusters submitted about ten projects this year, which is several times higher than the figure for 2022. The first swallow is from APPAU — thanks Loic Marin (CIMES cluster from France), APPAU became a beneficiary of the IDEALIST consortium, the winner of one of the competitions of the Horizon Europe program.

In general, the network of ambassadors grew in 2023. And although some of them showed less activity compared to 2022, the network grew to 26 people in general. It is very nice to see more and more active Ukrainians abroad among them. This is:

• Ihor Kotsyuba — Chairman of the new Ukrainian cluster of cyber security, which, in its field of specialization, is already very closely cooperating with some Spanish and British partners and the European Commission.
• Anastasia Konstantinova — an employee of the Dutch consulting company Technopolis. Anastasia actively supported our individual clusters this year and is already cooperating with the RC “Medical Clusters” to prepare several project applications.
• Roman Kravchenko, the CEO of 482.solutions, a member of the UCA Twin transition committee of UCA and who has been permanently based in Singapore since 2018, has initiated several exchanges with partners in this region.
• Eugen Rokytsky, head of the United Innovative Space Clusters, is permanently in Poland. Evgeny organized the support of the UCA delegation to an aviation trade fair in Toulouse (France), constantly supports our missions to the Czech Republic and Poland, and is now also developing a network of partners in the Dual-use segment.
• Kateryna Kislenko— the manager, who is already integrated into the German OptecBB cluster (that is, works together with Mike Richardson), in October-November set a new dynamic for cooperation with our Photonics cluster initiative, offering a transition to clearly defined formats of promising projects. Undoubtedly, this approach is only welcomed by the management of the UCA.

These examples vividly show the potential of our diaspora, which can grow exponentially.

Results and perspective on 2024

The activities of the network of ambassadors and the results of 2023 are still subject to collective reflection within the UCA, our Board, Resource Centers, and Committees. Assessments and lessons from this period may be different, but it is important to make them consider the context of the internationalization of our clusters and SMEs, which is determined by the following geopolitical factors:

• The strengthening of global trends in the components of the well-known acronyms VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) or BANI (fragility, anxiety, non-linearity, and ambiguity). The war in Ukraine is a vivid example of how all these factors come into play.
• Against the background of strengthening all these factors globally, Ukraine cannot offer the world the strategic perspective of ending the war. Our Western allies cannot do this either. Therefore, in the West, especially among various groups of voters, fatigue from the war in Ukraine is increasing.
• This weariness and/or growing skepticism is relevant to our project, Restoration. You can plan them as much as you want now, but no one understands when they will start.

To all this, it is worth adding an internal factor — the level of readiness of clusters and SMEs of UCA for internationalization, which is not so high as we would expected. 

In general, this situation is not favorable for the development of economic relations with the EU and is perceived by the management of the UCA as a big challenge.

In this context, our network of ambassadors definitely should be taken as a reliable instrument and a powerful asset for the internationalization of UCA. Due to its loyalty, influence, established relations and confidence, this network can quickly integrate Ukrainian clusters into European chains and ecosystems.

Individual challenges, goals, and the prospect of 2024 are already being developed in front of our eyes together with the ambassadors and consist of the following.

1. Trends regarding the integration of Ukraine into the industrial ecosystems of the EU, which are set by the conference CMR in Košice, should gain momentum in several dimensions
   1. Project-based approach — the parties should focus on specific projects that have value for both sides — Euro-Atlantic and Ukrainian. UCA has started systematic works, forming a portfolio of Resilience and Recovery projects, but now it is obvious that the front of work in this area is still very large.
   2. Because of uncertainty during many Recovery projects (construction, industry, energy), projects in the field of Dual-use technologies, MilTech, and others related to support of critical industries of Ukraine. These projects aim to achieve specific goals of increasing the defense capability and resilience of critical chains in the fields of infrastructure, energy, and basic goods.
   3. Due to the still young age and weaknesses of many clusters, we also need broad coalitions and joint development of new promising projects, including with UCA partners, such as the “Club of Mayors” (EoT) and leading industrial associations of the national level.
2. Integration into the innovation ecosystems of the EU — the second strategic direction defined by our Internationalization strategy for 2024. Concerning areas of our work in 2022-23, no significant changes are planned for 2024. We just need to deepen our cooperation with Euro clusters, which have already gained momentum in the past year.
3. Expanding cooperation with individual countries with a focus on agreements B2B – another specific priority of our programs for 2024. We must remember that capacities development (soft) projects are good and important. They are extremely necessary for clusters from their capacity’s perspective. But real businesses, members of our clusters, drive the economy. Therefore, KPIs regarding real, commercial deals with foreign partners should be one of the main tasks in the work of our clusters.

Of these medium-term goals, the Professionals4Ukraine program is a reliable tool and a powerful asset of the UCA. Therefore, it is already possible to fully specify at least three categories of final KPI for 2024, which can be managed by our clusters and ambassadors:

• Number of bi- and multilateral programs that are financially supported by national governments or pan-European institutions
• The number of “soft” projects for the development of clusters and business associations
• A number of “solid” projects are under development, production, and chains for critical industries.
• The number of commercial transactions between B2B companies

According to the executive directorate of the UCA, in 2023, the Professionals4Ukraine program will become an effective and efficient mechanism for internationalizing Ukrainian SMEs and clusters. Simultaneously, it is worth noting that this program is still voluntary — it is practically not supported at the level of any serious donor or government programs. For 2024, UCA is searching for partners to facilitate or provide systemic funding and support for this program.

Another important point is that the resources and services of the program in 2024 are available only to active members of the UCA.

We invite clusters, UCA members, and their participants to join the final meeting of ambassadors on December 18 at 16:00 CET.

Reference information

The final meeting of #Professionals4Ukraine is organized by the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance within the international cooperation programme “EU4Business: SME Recovery, Competitiveness and Internationalisation“, that is co-financed by the European Union and the German government. The programme aims to support Ukraine’s economic resilience, recovery and growth, create better conditions for the development of Ukrainian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as support innovation and exports. More details: www.eu4business.org.ua

The strategic implementer of the programme is the German federal company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The local partner for implementation is the NGO Ukrainian Cluster Alliance.

The contents are the sole responsibility of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance and do not necessary reflect the views of the European Union, German Government, GIZ.

#eu4business, #MovingForwardTogether, #gizSME #UCACApGrowth

Executive directorate UCA.