Hundreds of influential business, industry, and academic leaders, gathered at the InterTradeIreland 2010 All-island Innovation Conference at University College Dublin to explore the potential economic opportunities which arise from building collaborative networks.

The key message to emerge from the conference was that building collaborative networks is essential to drive and facilitate innovation and to develop a dynamic and indigenous knowledge-based economy on the island of Ireland.

In a keynote address, Professor Woody Powell, a leading economic sociologist at Stanford University, California, outlined the central factors required to build robust business clusters within an economy.

Professor Powell recently conducted a study on the development of the biotech industry in 11 regions of the US. Each region had the potential to form biotech clusters because they were rich in resources such as scientific knowledge, money, and business skills, but only three regions formed robust clusters, while the other eight failed.

From his findings, Professor Powell concluded that the successful clusters were marked by the presence of  local ‘anchor tenants’ who fostered the values of openness and transparency in the region and encouraged exploration, a diversity of types of organisations and a dense web of local relationships.

“Collaborative networks are the locus of innovation and explain why high-tech clusters form in some regions but not others, even when the regions have comparable resources,” said Professor Powell.

“The implication for all industrial sectors is that successful clusters require the thorough mixing of people, ideas and resources across the university, business and financial communities. Having organisational diversity and catalytic organisations which provide the relational glue to hold clusters together and facilitate the transfer of best practices are also essential.”

“The development of true collaborative networks will be instrumental in the development of a robust and innovative knowledge-based economy on the island of Ireland,” concluded Professor Powell.