European observatory for clusters and industrial change: Policy briefing : Slovenia

The aim of the work in Slovenia is to support the national authority and stakeholders in defining actions that facilitate the industrial transformation of Slovenia through clusters. In the case of Slovenia, the Slovenia S3 strategy (also referred to as S4) with the nine SRIPs (Strategic Research and Innovation Partnerships) is currently being implemented as the strategy for industrial transformation. SRIPs are at the core of the S3 strategy, and as national clusters and cluster policy they are instrumental in the country's industrial transformation. As identified in the assessment report implementation of strategies can be seen as a weakness of the past. New strategies and policy measures have been developed replacing old ones, before these previous strategies and measures had been properly implemented and evaluated. The SRIP policy is deliberately addressing this vulnerability, since it is not a short-term support. It is investing in SRIPs as institutional and governance structures and it emphasises the importance of learning with, for instance, actions on cluster management skills development and monitoring of SRIPs. As relatively young clusters, SRIPs (established in 2017) will also serve to steer the transformation process, and initiate and implement new strategies and actions after the support or programming period. The needs expressed by Slovenia in its application as a pilot region therefore did not refer to the development of a new strategy, but rather to more concrete actions supporting the implementation of the current strategy and structures. The EOCIC work was carried out in cooperation with the AMI expert who was also funded by the European Commission. This policy brief provides input into a "managed industrial transition" (Zuleeg et al, 2018) through clusters, based on the insight that different clusters, regions and Member States across Europe are characterised by different assets, strengths and weaknesses, and that they face different obstacles and threats that need to be overcome. We therefore adopt a tailored approach that builds on existing resources and we place considerable emphasis on co-design and commitment from the variety of relevant stakeholders in the transition concerned. This document builds on the assessment report to summarise the challenges, barriers and drivers to industrial modernisation in Slovenia, before outlining a set of actions to support the managed industrial transformation. The report is based on extensive desk research, a number of face-to-face interviews, a study visit in Ljubljana (June 2018), a policy review meeting (November 2018) and insights from participating in a capacity building workshop for Slovenian Clusters/SRIPs (November 2018)