Emerging value clusters in the New Member States: The role of collaborative innovation

Establishing an effective European Research and Innovation Area is a major policy objective for all European member states. As ten New Member States recently have entered the European Union, new constellations of economic activity are developing, involving new clusters of economic activity and new business relations between the new and old member states. Also, the issue of fragmentation of research communities and insufficient linkages between academic and business worlds is brought to the forefront. In this paper the role of policies and strategies to stimulate the development of value clusters and new opportunities for collaborative innovation in the New Member States is explored. In particular, we focus on the creation of networks of collaborative innovation and value creation and how they may strengthen the New Member States´ systems of innovation.