16 October 2012 | 19 October 2012 | Spain

With 400 participants from 50+ countries, the 2012's TCI Global Conference was a global and inspiring platform for fast exchange of patterns and ideas on competitiveness, clusters and innovation. The four day conference provided a unique opportunity for policy-makers, cluster practitioners and academics to advance our understanding of current challenges, and to work towards practical solutions. Starting with cluster tours, passing to the conference official opening in Bilbao and two more days of conference in San Sebastian, participants could get a complete perspective of the Basque Country.

The theme of the 2012 TCI Global conference was "Constructing Place-based Competitiveness in Times of Global Change". Creating economic growth and welfare is highly important nowadays. Various cases presented during the 4 days of the TCI conference are strongly supporting this idea. Combining local and global resources with unique correlation of tools builds innovative approaches for strengthening competitiveness. Through following 8 tracks the topic of place-based competitiveness has been discussed through diverse aspects. Each one addressed peculiar area of up-to-date issues, which were presented by experts from all over the world in the workshops and could be discusses in "problem-solving spaces".

Plenary sessions, which took place along the workshops tracks, also adressed similar issues. Thus, numerous examples indicated the growing role of integration location specific features with international orientation into the competitiveness programmes. Concept of "Smart Specialisation Platform" recently launched by the European Commission also targets toward the development of long-term strategies based on local competitive advantages.

Rapidly growing urbanization processes increase the pressure on cities infrastructure, business/ industrial/ social environment and governmental authorities. Herewith creating comfortable and secure leaving conditions is important in order to attract high-qualified specialists. Talented people are one of the main keys for success. They build the core of any cluster-based approach and appear as knowledge bearer. Current research trends are evolving around the notion of "how" to create, manage, strengthen or control competitiveness in an efficient way - as it is considered to bear the key components of success.

The conference was hosted by Orkestra - Basque Insitute of Competitiveness and Basque Government, in collaboration with TCI Network. Hosted in a part of the world renowned for building competitiveness strategy from the strengths of its firms and people, the conference also offered an opportunity to share and reflect on the competitiveness trajectory of the Basque Country, a Spanish region with strong tradition, experience and results in cluster and competitiveness policy.

 Delegates had the chance to explore some of the region's innovative clusters - aerospace, automotive, biosciences, machine tool, renewable energy, surf, wine and tourism - and unique experiences such as the city regeneration of Bilbao or the cooperative organisation of Mondragon. TCI 2012 conference was held in two different venues: Euskalduna Conference Center in Bilbao and Kursaal Conference Center in San Sebastian.