Choosing competitiveness |
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What exactly is a competitive cluster? |
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The role of a competitive cluster is to stimulate innovation in French industry and increase the competitiveness of businesses. |
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How? |
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| By bringing together a combination of companies, training centres and research units within a given geographical area, in order to form a partnership that is designed to create synergies around common projects of an innovative nature, with the critical mass needed to provide an international presence.
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Why? (From the companies' perspective) |
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- Share the use of major equipment and technical platforms
- Define industrial research projects that, with the benefit of the "competitive cluster" label, could be put forward for subsidies from government ministries and local authorities in partnership with the cluster
- Establish training and support schemes to guarantee the replacement of employees who retire.
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Why? (From a regional perspective) |
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- Strengthen the nation's industrial competitiveness
- Stimulate economic development
- Create or maintain industrial employment
- Project an image of a France that is technologically and industrially advanced
- Provide a regional grounding for industrial activity: create synergies with the local potential for research and development, thus attracting investments and expertise on European and international levels.
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What are the financial advantages? |
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Tax exemptions and reduced social charges for R&D employees assigned to officially approved projects (25% for big businesses and 50% for SMEs)
Financial support (1.5 billion euros over 3 years):
- Via the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) [French National Research Agency] for projects situated upstream of an applied research activity
- Via the Agence de l'Innovation Industrielle (AII) [French Industrial Innovation Agency] for very large projects (> 50 million euros)
- Via the Fonds de Compétitivité des Entreprises (FCE) [French Corporate Competitiveness Fund] of the Ministry of Industry (> 1 million euros)
- Via OSEO (French innovation and finance agency for SMEs) for projects < 3 million euros
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