May 2024 was quite eventful in the cluster community, with numerous occasions in many areas of activity. The Executive Directorate’s report emphasizes the most important results of the Alliance’s activities for our members.

Participation in international events

Participation in the European Cluster Conference on May 7-8 was a major event for the Alliance clusters. The UCA members were represented in two delegations— our own and the one sponsored by GIZ-Ukraine. So seven UCA’s clusters could joined the largest European cluster event. The main outcomes relate to improving or establishing relations with many European partners. For more details on all participation results, see the UCA reporting webinar of May 23.

The second most significant event was the defence conference in Brussels on May 6. The UCA delegation included the Executive directorate, APPAU, the Cybersecurity and Space Clusters, and the Rivne Interregional Medical Cluster. Participation allowed us to establish relations with the Ministry of Strategic industries and several manufacturers and defence associations, both Ukrainian and foreign. It was also the first time we realized the need to form a pan-European initiative #Clusters4Defense. In May, work began on its formalization.

Other events in May, with the participation of UCA clusters

• Within the framework of the V4 Region Transition project Supporting Ukraine Recovery and Reconstruction with the support of the International Visegrad Fund, a Ukrainian delegation began visiting the Visegrad Four countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia). The delegation includes representatives of mono-profile territories specializing in coal mining and thermal generation. Among them are participants representing communities in the Carpathian region (BURSHTYN+ program) and Western Donbas. These regions have been the focus of our work for the last 3 years.
• On May 30, Leonid Hatskevych, Ambassador of the Professionals4Ukraine program, participated in the Romanian Inno-Construct conference, where a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the UCA and e-DIH of Wallachia. The event was held as part of the launch of the bilateral cooperation committee, which was formed in April. A joint event is planned for June.
• UCA CEO Oleksandr Yurchak spoke (online) at the conference on innovations organized by the Krakow University of Economics with the support of FPPP.

In May, the RC “Dual Purpose Technologies” clusters continued to prepare for the defense conference in Krakow, which will be held on June 5-6.

Participation of UCA clusters in the EU-Ukraine clusters partnership program

More than 10 UCA clusters have been involved in the EU-Ukraine cluster partnership program, which was established by the European Commission to support Ukrainian clusters and their integration into the European space. The Executive Directorate has supported and facilitated the formation of more than 7 consortia, and more than 10 are expected to be formed.

According to preliminary data, more than 20 Ukrainian clusters participated in the competition directly or indirectly (as associate partners). In particular, in the consortium submitted directly by the UCA Publishing House for the creation of the Energy Clusters of Ukraine meta-cluster, the associated partners are the Heat Engineering Cluster of Ukraine, the Digital Energy Cluster, the Kyiv High Tech Cluster, the Astar NGO, the Lviv Energy Instrumentation Cluster, the APPAU, and the Innovation Development Center of Kyiv. Kyiv, as well as 2 DIHs – KPI and KAU.

Thus, this competition is the largest in terms of involvement of UCA clusters. The announcement of 6 winners is expected in September 2024. However, we can already talk about the first positive results, such as improved cluster consolidation, creation of new project ideas, better understanding of EU practices, etc.

New projects and initiatives. News from our partners.

As part of a GIZ-supported project to develop DIHs in Ukraine, heads of UCA’s executive departments and committees attended the official opening of the DIH NOSC-UA prototyping laboratory at the Kyiv Academic University. UCA experts also participated in DIH KPI’s work on analyzing the formation of landscapes of several technological segments of Industry 4.0. Together, these projects demonstrate much more cooperation between UCA clusters and Kyiv DIHs.

APPAU won a UNDP competition to create a roadmap for the digital transformation of Ukraine’s textile industry. As this competition was held among 27 partner business associations within the framework of a 3-year UNDP project, APPAU will implement this project jointly with Ukrlegprom and Ivano-Frankivsk CCI. The activities include the integration of SME digital readiness self-diagnostic tools on Diia.Business, development of a digital transformation roadmap together with Ukrlegprom enterprises, workshops, and a conference. This project will be of interest and use to all UCA clusters and their members involved in the digital transformation of industrial SMEs.

More than 10 UCA clusters have completed the cluster maturity diagnostic survey offered by the EU4Digital Facility. The survey took up to 1 hour to complete, and to encourage cluster managers to complete it, EU4Digital management together with the UCA Executive Board agreed on incentives such as the publication of cluster success stories on the EU4Digital portal, as well as free ESCA Bronze certification services. The Innovation and Cluster Policy Committee, together with the Executive Directorate, continues to work on integrating the UCA into the Accelerate GDT project. This is a project of the Interreg Europe program, which provides for the creation and development of a state cluster policy in Ukraine. The UCA’s partner in the project is the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine.

Events in Ukraine

During the International Industrial Forum on May 28-30, the UCA participated in 4 clusters with its own stand for the first time. The Executive Directorate also organized 3 roundtables on Reskilling—upskilling, digitalization of industrial SMEs, and cluster development.

The full report on the event cabe reached by the link and it is already clear that such meetings are very important for networking with a wide range of manufacturers, as well as demonstrating the common positions of the UCA clusters. In total, more than 10 UCA clusters took part in the stand and round tables – Ukrainian Industrial Cluster, Zaporizhzhia IAM Cluster, Heat Engineering Cluster of Ukraine, Medical Manufacturers Cluster, APPAU, Podil Fashion Cluster, Kharkiv IT Cluster, Dnipro Printing Cluster, Circular Economy Cluster, Photonics Cluster, Science Parks Cluster, as well as our key ecosystem partners DIH KPI and DIH KAU.

The conference “BLUE SUMMIT: Strategic Recovery of Mykolaiv through Sustainable Development and Blue Economy”, organized by the Mykolaiv Business Support Center, attracted representatives of the authorities, the public, as well as many members of the Maritime Cluster of Ukraine (MCU), UCA and its foreign partners. The UMC traditionally pursues the development of the blue economy, and this event is another in a series that the UMC and its partners have been holding over the past 3 years. Read more.

On May 23, UCA Board members Oleksandr Yurchak (CEO of UCA) and Olga Shapoval (CEO of Kharkiv IT Cluster) spoke at the final OECD event in Kyiv dedicated to the release of the analytical report “Digitalization of Ukrainian SMEs”. This work results from an analytical study that OECD experts have conducted for more than 3 years within the framework of the Eastern Partnership program. UCA experts were involved in analysing this document and provided their suggestions. For more details about the event, please read Olga Shapoval’s post here.

On May 14, 2024, a roundtable discussion on “Development of the cluster movement in Dnipropetrovs’k region” was held at Alfred Nobel University (Dnipro). The event was organized by the International Visionary Institute for Strategic Partnership and the Science Cluster “Science Parks of Ukraine” in partnership with the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance and Alfred Nobel University. Participants of the event, including the Dnipro Development Agency, Pavlohrad City Council, IT Dnipro Community, and others, proposed a basic draft of the roadmap for 2024-2025.

Improving efficiency and cooperation at UCA

The final article of the UCA on the results of the work of the Innovation Committee for the first 5 months of 2024 draws lessons and gives certain recommendations to clusters to improve their performance. The results of the work are indicative of the importance of understanding the importance of effective management of structural units, and lessons on focus factors, resource management, quality of interaction, and personal responsibility of managers.

In May, the UCA Executive Directorate launched 3 initiatives involving about 20 clusters:

1. Formation of the #Clusters4Defense initiative aimed at mobilizing European clusters in the Dual-Use and MilTech sectors to help Ukraine. The first step to this is to clearly understand and formulate our own vision, including identifying challenges, pooling the resources of our defense clusters and positioning the entire UCA in this area, as well as developing our proposals for cooperation. Work on a joint document is underway.
2. The formation of the initiative to create a meta-cluster “Energy Clusters of Ukraine” has begun within the framework of the above-mentioned EU-Ukraine cluster partnership program. Currently, the consortium, led by the UCA, includes as associate partners the Heat Engineering Cluster of Ukraine, APPAU, the Digital Energy Cluster, DIHs of KPI and KAU with their respective energy departments, Kyiv High Tech Cluster, Astar NGO, Lviv Energy Instrumentation Cluster, and the Innovation Development Center (Kyiv).
3. Two working groups started preparing analytical reports on formalizing the best practices of the UCA clusters. Two conferences—the all-Ukrainian one in February and the one on science-business cooperation in March—gave this work its initial start. Thus, the first working group (led by Vasyl Tkachuk from the Center for Innovation Development in Rivne) is describing best practices on general topics of cluster development, while the second (led by Yulia Ryzhkova) is finalizing practices of science and business cooperation.
4. Taking into account the growth of new threats to the consolidation of the country’s cluster movement, the Board is working on the release of the provisions of the UCA Code of Ethics – it is expected in June.

May’s main results – benchmarks for June

May is quite indicative of the scale of UCA’s activities – thanks to the activity of our clusters, Resource Centers and committees, and initiative groups, we can cover several events in the international arena, in the country, and in various areas of activity. In this sense, May does not differ much from previous months, except that the number of these events was higher. Among the significant events and markers of changes, it is worth noting

1. Better ability of the UCA and our clusters to find resources and opportunities to participate in international conferences, even independently of donor funding. After the Warsaw conference in March, it is clear that this is a sustainable trend and is indeed a sign of autonomy.
2. Strengthening the consolidation of UCA clusters in many formats and directions – from the European Commission’s calls, to the creation of new meta-cluster initiatives, to joint participation in the Industrial Forum.
3. The most important of the new initiatives – the formation of network structures such as Cluster4Defense and Energy Clusters of Ukraine – are super important from the perspective of the UCA clusters as one of the key actors in these areas and demonstrate our consolidated response to national level challenges. After all, it is obvious that these challenges are too big to overcome alone

At the same time, May clearly demonstrated the attempts of certain internal forces to fragment the cluster movement, sow confusion among the members of the UCA and cast a shadow over the leadership. The Board and Executive Directorate of the UCA will try to stop this trend. The initiators of these attempts should be well aware of what confusion and fragmentation mean in war times and against the backdrop of huge and yet to be presented challenges facing the country’s cluster movement.

We urge those who have too much strength, resources or ambition to use them to jointly address these challenges – the growth of clustering of the country’s economy, and first of all, its defence sector; the growth of the pace of formation of young clusters; institutionalization of the cluster movement; unification and normalization of internal rules in the cluster movement. Even if you want a competition, please be ready to demonstrate your results and a higher level of performance in addressing these challnegs. At the same time, the position of the UCA leadership is quite categorical: any competition with the UCA during the war, and given the scale of these challenges, is extremely harmful. This is a threat to the entire cluster movement in the country.

UCA CEO O. Yurchak once again reminded the community of these challenges in his article on the UCA website.

The UCA will continue this course of consolidation and acceptance of these challenges through a series of events in June:

• June 4-6 – Ukrainian-Polish forum on MilTech under the auspices of NATO – 5 clusters and partner organizations will participate in the Ukrainian delegation of the UCA.
• On June 5-6, an international forum on artificial intelligence will be held at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, during which the heads of the clusters of the Dual-use RC will meet with the Institute of Defense Technologies of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. AI experts are also invited.
• On June 10, at the traditional UCA meeting, a discussion of project ideas submitted to the EU-Ukraine cluster partnership competition will take place.
• On June 12, an online conference with Romanian clusters is planned to share best practices in the development of innovation ecosystems
• On June 11 and 13, UCA plans to launch two new Working Groups
• Data Space in industrial ecosystems – this WG will be open to experts from all partner structures (June 11)
• Establishment of the RC “Energy Clusters of Ukraine” within the UCA (June 13)
• On June 21, an online event will be held to match technology companies – developers with traditional industries represented in the UCA clusters
• On June 27, an all-Ukrainian cluster conference is planned in Kyiv under the auspices of the Ministry of Economy and with the support of GIZ-Ukraine. Before the conference, the UCA plans to release 2 analytical reports on the best practices of the UCA.

We invite UCA clusters to cooperate in these events. We invite those clusters that are not yet our members to join the UCA – the value proposition can be found here and the registration form can be found here.