The report about EU-Japan region & cluster cooperation, published in May 2020, was conducted in the framework of the MINERVA EU-Japan Market & Policy Intelligence Programme the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation by Réka Lóczi.

The objective of this report is to provide an analysis of the practices, successes and challenges of existing EU-Japan region-to-region, cluster-to-cluster and region-to-cluster cooperation with a focus on cooperation within the field of regional innovation and business networks.

Moreover, this report will serve to give organisations, offering services to promote industrial cooperation between the EU and Japan, like the Centre, practical advice on ways to improve this type of cooperation. Regions and clusters play an important role in the development and internationalisation of SMEs. To support existing region & cluster cooperation to further industrial collaboration for SMEs, the research also investigated the benefits for SMEs participating in EU-Japan region & cluster cooperation schemes. In order to provide an overview of the current state of region & cluster cooperation, a survey and multiple interviews have been conducted. It can be said that a great potential for region & cluster cooperation has been identified. EU-surveyed stakeholders from a variety of industries that do not have any region & cluster cooperation with Japanese entities as of the moment, are generally interested in developing such cooperation activities. Moreover, Japanese-surveyed and interviewed stakeholders from a variety of industries who have ongoing region & cluster cooperation activities are generally interested in expanding their activities through cooperation with other EU entities.

For more information about the topic, including common underlying drivers for and challenges faced during EU-Japan region & cluster cooperation as well as the benefits for SMEs involved, please see the full report, which you can access via the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation's website on the MINERVA PAST REPORTS (2014~2020) page or in the Library section of the website. In addition to the report, a podcast about the main findings of the research is also available.