27 September 2004 | 01 October 2004 | Canada

The TCI 2004 Global Conference was the perfect opportunity for the members from all fields of business, government and academia to share and exchange experiences in an environment that grants access to the most recent and innovative cluster knowledge, research and data. With expert voices from over 40 countries, they had the chance examine best practices and new approaches to enhance and sustain innovative cluster through their successes and lessons learned based in their experiences.

The conference was a bit different from the others as it followed eight different tracks in order to investigate key areas of cluster activity and be highly interactive. Those members pursuing the same categories of interest were engaged in continuous dialogue throughout the conference in Miniforums and were provided with track facilitators with a vast amount of cluster knowledge and experience to guide them through the conference and achieve result. Also, the different meetings were complemented with short presentations and keynote speakers. The begginers in the field of clusters had the chance to participate in the Introductory Training Seminar held by Alec Hansen, Emiliano Duch and Ifor Ffowcs-Williams.

With the idea of strengthen competitiveness and innovation in clusters, the different forums in the conference focused in some of the main subjects in these fields such as national competitiveness and cluster policies and frameworks, regional cluster models and dynamics, business leadership, techniques for technology commercialization or collaboration-based cluster development.

The presentation of the Whitebook - written by Thomas Anderson and the International Organization for the Knowledge Economy and Enterprise Development (IKED) - was the opportunity to discuss in depth the items of the conference but also the different issues of the book, where they could find an overview of the state of the art of cluster policies. The Whitebook is aimed to be a living document continually updated by cluster practitioners worldwide. 

To close the Global Conference, the TCI president Alec Hansen and the secretary Alberto Pezziin the name of all the members of the institution conferred on Giacomo Becattini the Lifetime Achievement Award, in reconigtion to his lifetime contribution to the academic foundations of cluster based economic development.