Please click here for a detailed project description... Topics: Policies and Instruments, Governance Capacity, Regional Value added Region: Oststeiermark / AT Term: 2002-11-01 - 2010-01-01 Contact person: Ferdinand Zisser office@regionalcluster.at http://www.regionalcluster.at

Project executive
The Hartberg District Development Association (Entwicklungsförderungsverband Bezirk Hartberg) is a non-profit organisation with a membership comprising all 50 communities of the Hartberg District that was set up to promote economic and social development in the region 25 years ago. The development of a dense network of all stakeholder groups is a key factor. Full involvement of local residents and a consequent strengthening of the regional identity are a further core element.

Participants
The cluster company is made up of leading figures in the business world, politicians, civil servants and local residents. Strictly speaking, all 67,000 inhabitants of the district are actors in the regional cluster. Partners for regular cluster conferences, working groups and activities are recruited from the regional business world, interest groups, consumers, schools, chambers of trade and labour, tourism organisations, youth groups, senior citizen organisations, and countless individuals who are involved in the various fields and subjects.

Objectives
Sustainable strengthening of the regional economy, maintaining the local availability of products and services, more intensive networking within the region, multi-sectoral co-operation generating synergies and new ideas, a consistent focus on the mission statement, meaningful substitution of imports (wood, etc.), an increase in exports, creating regional value-added chains, creating a positive climate for innovation, rooting CSR in the business world, reinforcing the business-consumer axis, product development as a joint activity for producers and consumers, countering the migration trend, reducing the number of commuters (especially weekly commuters), increasing the share of the service sector through repair business initiatives, increasing agricultural potential, developing targeted lobbying for the rural space, applying the principle of sustainability as the yardstick for all personal decisions, more attention to soft location factors (human happiness factors) compared with the conventional monetary location factors.

Activities
Two-day Future Conference at which the Hartberg Regional Mission Statement was developed by 80 persons representing a good cross-section of the region (agriculture, tourism, the trades, services, industries, local authorities, consumers, multipliers). Working groups were then set up to produce an action programme for achieving the defined objectives. This programme is now being implemented. Regular cluster conferences, to which the company is invited, form the basis of the process. This generates projects of varying complexity and duration in which concrete progress is made. The regional cluster is the neutral platform that enables the various stakeholder groups to enter into a dialogue. Intensive PR work and information offerings ensure than the subjects selected and objectives set are communicated to the general public and encourage people to support them in ways great and small and to actually implement them. Multi-sectoral networking and a strict focus on sustainability are fundamental to all work.

Results
An enormous dynamism has been generated in the district. The mood of resignation (bottom of the league in Austria in terms of purchasing power, etc.) is clearly giving way to a new optimism. Visible progress is a source of encouragement for further activities. Sustainability as the common ground for all activities creates a common identity. This new inner strength means self-confidence towards the outside world. Many barriers between trade and industry, local authorities and the consumer can be overcome. The cluster offers orientation for the selected subjects and objectives and serves as a neutral platform (catalyst). Success with the projects is an additional source of motivation: sustainability catching on, consumer platform, regional energy contracting, innovation award, public speaking prize for young people, Wiffzack Prize, Hartberg Rally, initiative in support of local shops, business world platform, Hungary working group, repairs network working group, barrier-free building working group, development of lobbying activities, VIP committee, nationwide response, media partnerships, shopping list.