{"id":33264,"date":"2025-09-24T14:35:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clusters.org.ua\/?p=33264"},"modified":"2025-09-27T07:19:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T04:19:28","slug":"the-resilience-of-ukrainian-clusters-how-to-strengthen-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clusters.org.ua\/en\/news-en\/the-resilience-of-ukrainian-clusters-how-to-strengthen-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The resilience of Ukrainian clusters \u2013 how to strengthen it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resilience as a term is increasingly becoming a clich\u00e9, widely used for both internal (in Ukraine) and external communications. At the same time, there are no in-depth studies on the nature of resilience in business associations or communities in Ukraine. Within the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance (UCA), we organized our first discussion and analysis on resilience<\/em> on September 2025. This publication is our first attempt to understand the nature of resilience among Ukrainian clusters in order to identify tools for strengthening it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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General Context of Resilience in Business support organizations<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We have been addressing the topic of resilience since 2020-ever since it was first widely discussed during COVID-19. Already then, examples of certain Ukrainian clusters<\/a> entered our analytical \u201cradar.\u201d We noted that yes-clusters mobilized, but mostly for charitable support of medical staff, rather than producing equipment or supplies. Unlike in Europe, there was no major mobilization to close supply chain gaps. The APPAU case, \u201cFirst Attempts to Enter MedTech<\/a>,\u201d clearly highlighted the shortcomings of the traditional behavior of manufacturers, market leaders, and the state there was no broad cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, we saw signs of a new culture based on values of openness, trust, wide networked collaboration, charity, and effectiveness. We analyzed this on the example of the StopCovidUA volunteer community. Already then, five years ago, we named this example a marker of the future development (and resilience) of the Ukrainian cluster movement. And in March 2022, clusters united around critical industries to jointly hold the economic front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years have passed. Today we clearly understand that a fast and consolidated reaction to crises challanges is possible only in mature, strong manufacturers unions.<\/strong> It was somewhat na\u00efve to expect this from communities that weren\u2019t even clusters five years ago. Now, we can state that our clusters withstood the first, most difficult years of war, and some continue to grow rapidly\u2014while others remain in a rather passive state. The picture is uneven, but overall, across the country, we see clusters growing by region and industry. State support is increasing, and more stakeholders are joining the cluster movement. Therefore, we have the right to speak about our resilience. So let\u2019s figure it out\u2014what lies at the core of our resilience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Resilience as the Nature of Clusters \u2013 Conceptualization<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are many online publications on resilience, including on cluster organizations. From them, the following conclusions can be drawn:<\/p>\n\n\n\n