In search of indicators to support the ‘perfect cluster’: Where evaluation theory collides with policy practice

The concept of geographically concentrated ‘clusters’ of firms, research institutions and other organisations became popular in economic development policy circles during the 1990s, following the publication of Michael Porter’s (1990) Competitive Advantage of Nations. Today there is widespread acceptance of the need to design policies that nurture and support cooperative relationships among groups of firms and other agents to boost competitiveness and innovation. Despite the widespread use of cluster policies as cornerstones of regional and national competitiveness policy, there remains a shortage of evaluation research and practice that enable us to understand the impacts of these policies. This is due to the inherent methodological difficulties in evaluating cluster policies, and capturing both direct and indirect impacts. For example, standard evaluation approaches focused on the firm as a single point of measurement risk missing the added value of collaboration core to the cluster approach. Addressing these challenges necessitates the coming together of academic expertise and analysis with the real-time and evolving experience of policy makers and practitioners. This paper makes a contribution in addressing this shared challenge and moving the cluster evaluation state-of-art forwards.