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2CE132P1 - CNCB
3.2.2 National cluster management concept
for Hungary
Work
Package WP3 Cluster management
Action 3.2.2
Author PP03
Version Date Status final
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Document Approval Chronology
Document Revision / Approval
Version Date Status Date Status
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Index
1. Introduction............................................................................. 4
2. Outputs from online survey and interviews ........................................ 4
2.1 General outputs....................................................................... 4
2.2 Online survey.......................................................................... 7
2.3 Interview..............................................................................11
3. Conclusions ............................................................................13
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1. Introduction
This document summarizes the outputs from the survey conducted within the CNCB project.
The survey took place from April till June 2011 and it consisted of two parts. The data in
the first part were gathered via online questionnaire survey that was followed by the second
part of the survey – in depth interviews. This document focuses on the WP3-Cluster
management part of the survey and, specifically, on the results from the clusters from
Hungary that served as a source for the National cluster management concept.
2. Outputs from online survey and interviews
2.1 General outputs
In the first part of the survey, the total of 96 clusters took part in, from which 25 (26%) was
from Hungary. Concrete clusters are listed in the table below. The rate of return in
Hungary was 62,5% as from 40 addressed clusters in total, only 25 responded.
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No. Name of the cluster City
1 South-Transdanubian Cultural Industry Cluster Pécs
2 Information Management Innovation Cluster Pécs
3 Pannon Wood and Furniture Cluster Zalaegerszeg
4 Hungarian Medical Cluster Budapest
45 Professio Metal Industry and Vocational Cluster Győr
6 Omnipack First Hungarian Cluster of packaging technology
Budapest
7 CTRIC Székesfehérvár
8 Pannon Renewable Energy Cluster Körmend
9 CLUSTHERM Debrecen
10 3P Cluster for Plastics, Packaging, Printing Industry Kecskemét
11 Dél-Dunántúli Energetikai Klaszter Pécs
12 Észak-magyarországi Informatikai Klaszter Miskolc
13 South-Transdanubian Environment Industry Cluster Pécs
14 Pécsi Kesztyűs klaszter Pécs
15 South Transdanubia Castle Tourism Cluster Pecs
16 Mobility and Multimedia Cluster Budapest
17 DDEK Pécs
18 Cluster for Energy Efficiency in Buildings in South-Transdanubian Region (Dél-dunántúli Épületgépészeti Energiahatékonysági Klaszter)
Pécs
19 AV Industry Cluster Pécs Pécs
20 Hód Industrial Cluster Szeged
21 Special Pecs Cluster of organizations for the people living with disability
Pécs
22 Digital Culture Innovation Cluster Pécs
23 Ecotourism Cluster of South-Dunántúl Patca
24 Biotechnology Innovation Base Pécs
25 Software Industry Pole Cluster Szeged
From these 25 clusters, 4 were addressed in the second part of the survey by the personal
interviews.
The focus of these clusters was quite wide. Many of the respondents (20%) were from the
areas not listed in the survey. There were clusters from areas of wood and furniture, metal
industry, plastics, packaging and printing and production of leather products. The
technological/industrial areas were represented by ICT industries & services (20%) and by
biotech pharma & cosmetics (8%). It seems that the green industry with intelligent energy
(20%) and environment (4%) also has a huge role in Hungary. Besides these, Creative
industry (12%), healthcare (8%) and tourism (8%) were frequent.
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The size of Hungarian clusters is quite small. 56% were in the category “less than 25
members” and 32% were in the category “26-50 members”. Among Hungarian respondent
clusters there were no clusters with more than 250 members. The smallest clusters (less
than 25 members) had also the major representation in the European context (44 clusters in
total) but we could also find 13 clusters with more than 101 members and even 3 clusters
with more than 250 members.
Also the average age (about 4,5 years) of Hungarian clusters was not so high. The earliest
year of the establishment was in 2001 and the latest in 2011. The oldest cluster in the
survey is located in Italy and it was established in 1978.
The means of funding are very important for cluster development. In Hungary the clusters
are mainly financed by membership fees (39%) and EU subsidies (33%). National and regional
subsidies are together the third important financing instrument (20%), and other
instruments (8%). play only the minor role.
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2.2 Online survey
Cluster management education is in these days one of the top discussed issues. Also cluster
managers in Hungary are in general aware of the fact that further qualification of
managers and staff is extremely important and they are willing to do certain actions in this
matter. In respect to this, 12 respondents (48%) indicated that they are currently interested
in training, 11 respondents (44%) indicated that they will probably be interested in the
future and only 2 respondents (8%) indicated that they are not interested at all. These
results show quite strong interest on CMs in Hungary in further education. Also we can see
the same pattern in other partner countries, where 57% were for education, 37% for
education in the future and even 6% for no education.
As cluster managers are highly concerned with further education, it is very important to
specify in which fields they are interested. The top five fields they identified were (in this
order) management of innovation, management of knowledge, marketing and PR,
project management and team management. When we compare these results with the
overall desires in other countries, the fields as management of innovation, strategic
planning, internationalization, project management and marketing and PR were stated as
the most important (in this order) and we can see the intersections. Management of
innovation has with no doubts the top priority. However, cluster managers in Hungary
incline to the more traditional fields of education like project or team management, in
contrary to cluster managers in the rest of the Europe who are interested more in the
strategic planning or internationalization. This finding underlines the fact that most of the
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Hungarian clusters, considering also their average age (4,5 years) are not as mature as their
counterparts in other countries, which sees the needs of education in the bigger
perspective.
Communicative skills
Language skills Computational skills Marketing and PR
Mean 3,81 3,33 3,14 4,24
Event organization
Micro – and macro economics
Industry, technological issues
Project management Team management
Mean 3,25 2,95 3,67 4,20 4,19
Management of knowledge
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Management of innovation
Management of environment
Strategic planning
Mean 4,27 3,71 4,32 3,40 4,00
Financial planning
Performance evaluation and optimization
Internationalization EU/national policies and subsidies
Stakeholder relations
Mean 3,76 3,60 4,05 3,43 3,50 (Rate the importance by 1-very low, 2-low, 3-medium, 4-high, 5-very high)
From the answers, we can also identify fields that are not interesting at all for the cluster
managers. These may be micro and macroeconomics, computational skills and event
organisation.
The content of the future educational courses is considerably important, but also on the
other hand the form of the courses cannot be ignored. That is the reason why we also ask
our respondents the question “What is important to you in the training?”. The suggested
answers were in many cases the opposites; in order to determinate the most preferred
option.
• When deciding between the education in national vs. international level the
Hungarian cluster managers preferred the national environment. (When comparing
this statement with other countries the results were opposite. Education on
international level was more preferred as in Hungary the national one, even though
language skills were not mentioned as very important, so the foreign languages do
not represent a barrier for Hungarian cluster managers. A reason for that is probably
the higher educational level of Hungarian cluster managers.)
• When deciding between teachers from practice vs. academic the obvious supremacy
were for practical teachers. (The results in other countries were the same. We can
see a really strong emphasis on practical teachers or experts.)
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• Modular education program was also not very important for Hungarian cluster
managers (3,10 on a five rate scale), not as much as in other countries where the
mean was 3,45.
• When deciding between internal education vs. distance learning, Hungarian cluster
managers preferred the internal education (on the spot). (There is also a difference
again with the same portion when comparing results from Hungary with the other
countries where the distance learning form prevails.)
• Education on the basis of case studies and good practice examples is obviously the
major aspect of successful course in Hungary as well as in other countries.
• And the last aspect of accredited education was for Hungarian cluster managers not
as important (mean was only 2,70) as in other countries (where the mean was 3,21).
Education in national level
Education in international level
Practical teachers (cluster experts)
University, academic, teachers
Mean 3,80 3,09 4,67 2,40
Modular education program
Inetrnal education E-education Case studies and good practise examples
Accredited education
Mean 3,10 3,20 2,80 4,25 2,70
(Rate the importance by 1-very low, 2-low, 3-medium, 4-high, 5-very high)
To conclude, the successful training course in Hungary should be based on national level,
with practical experts, rather performed on the spot and filled with lots of case studies and
good practice examples. If the future educational institution can meet these requirements,
it will surely provide a successful training.
Another two crucial aspects of the educational courses are time and costs. According to
this, we asked cluster managers if they already have some budget for education. In
Hungary 48% of the respondents have no budget at all, 52% of the respondents has a budget
of 1000 € maximum per year and none of the respondent clusters has a budget over 1000 €
per year. For the details see the graph below.
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In overall evaluation from other countries there were also about 41% of respondents that
stated the absence of special budget for training, 38% has a budget of maximum 1000 € per
year and 15% has a budget of maximum 2000 € per year. There is also a 7% of respondents
that has even bigger budget than 2000 € for education. When we compare these shares we
can see that Hungarian clusters cannot afford to spend much money on education.
Therefore it is even more important, to have case studies and good practices in the training
course instead of providing theoretical knowledge.
Our last goal was to understand the past good and bad experiences in cluster management
education. Successful courses can be used like good practice; on the other hand,
unsuccessful courses can refer to problems that have to be definitely avoided. Only 12
cluster managers (48%) had some previous experience in training. The passed courses were
focused mainly on cluster management training, innovation management and strategy
planning. None of the respondent cluster managers attended a business administration or
financial management training. These courses were in every case performed on the spot.
The length of the courses varied from the longest with 80 hours to the shortest with 5 hours,
as well as the number of trainees involved in the course varied from 2 to 30. The courses
were provided by national training institutes, local/cluster training institutes, consultant
firms and with the highest rate by other institutions (probably with the help of the cluster’s
own experts).
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The attendees of these courses were mostly satisfied. The missing point of the courses were
proven results of best practices, and the lack of time, to learn more about several topics.
2.3 Interview
The following interviews were focused on gathering detailed information and opinions in the
previous areas. The principle was to get more qualitative information that can be later
transferred to some concrete outputs. The cluster managers that were so kind to assist with
the interview regarding cluster management qualification were from the Hungarian clusters
listed below:
• Biotechnology Innovation Base Cluster
• South Transdanubian Energy Cluster
• South Transdanubian Cultural Industry Cluster
• South Transdanubian AV Industry Cluster
One of the main parts of the interview was dedicated to the understanding of the
personality of a cluster manager and his/her needs. Thus firstly we focused on cluster
manager profile. Cluster managers in Hungary have generally a university degree. Most of
the cluster managers have studied economic sciences, or law. Because of the similar
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educational directions, all cluster managers characterised their current job as economically
focused. There is also a huge variety in the time spent as a cluster manager. There are
cluster managers that started this job 5 years ago, but also cluster managers that are 1 or 2
years on this position. All of these cluster managers see their future professional
development in the same field.
Cluster managers have to master all different kinds of skills and knowledge. There are
certain skills specific for a cluster management that are usually used daily and, therefore,
they are the most important. The interviewed cluster managers indicated communication as
the most important skill because communication is a basis for many other areas, and
because the communication with member firms and partners is a daily duty. The
organisational skills (general cluster management or project management and coordination)
are the second most common skill used by the cluster managers. Marketing knowledge and
skills were also indicated as indispensable. Marketing is important on one hand, to ensure
greater visibility for the cluster and so for its members. On the other hand, a cluster
provides services for it members, and also for companies and institutions outside the
cluster. These services also have to be promoted. Cluster managers feel a big need for
further improvement in certain skills. Technological knowledge on the cluster’s field,
administration skills and time management were noted as the topics where cluster
managers don’t feel so strong and in which they would like to improve.
The Hungarian cluster managers also agree that the management of innovation, strategic
planning, internationalization, project management and marketing and PR should definitely
not be excluded from the educational courses. Other suggestions for including financial and
legal regulations, cluster optimisation and development, and crisis management were
noted.
Foreign language is also one of the biggest issues in cluster management. Building strong
relations on international level assume good language knowledge that brings you good
negotiation advantage. All Hungarian cluster managers asked in the in depth interview
stated using foreign language every day. As English is the basic and essential language,
there are also other languages like German. Despite the great importance of foreign
languages, their further development should not be, according to our opinion, a part of
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cluster managers training. Mastering foreign language is a long-term run and the managers
should take a full responsibility in it.
Moreover, during the interviews we received the experiences with some past training. This
further information served for deeper understanding of the problem. However, the results
were in general identical with the information gathered by the survey. A successful training
should carefully balance the line between the theory and practise. A lot of theoretical
explication, little relevant topics or lecturing without interactivity can quickly turn a
promising educational course into a disaster. On the other hand, the topics relevant to the
cluster management or a concrete cluster, success stories, case studies, experienced
trainers from practice or orientation on practical training are highly demanded.
The question of time and money was opened once more. The maximal length of the course
should be 10 days and the maximal price should be 1000 € for those ten days.
3. Conclusions
The picture of the form for the future cluster managers training in Hungary and also the
demands of the cluster managers are quite clear. From the survey and interviews result we
can propose following educational course.
Training structure:
• A modular course.
• The maximal length of the course should be in total 2 weeks (10 days) per a year,
structured into one, two or maximum three days courses.
• The cost of the training should be 1000 € top for the whole two-week course.
• Does the location matter? If the training course will be modular it can be used
universally.
• Lectors should be rather experts from practice than academic teachers.
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Training Content (Curriculum):
• Management of innovation (creativity, visions, management of changes); 2 days
• Management of knowledge 1 day
• Marketing, PR and communication (assertivity and negotiation, networking skills,
presentation skills, team management); 1-2 days
• Project management (time management, financial management, team management,
…); 1-2 days
• International strategy development (preparation, implementation and evaluation,
cluster members motivation), Internationalisation through cooperation in R&D
projects (information about grants and programs, project application creation and
project implementation); 2-3 days
• Strategy planning and development; 1-2 days
• Financial planning (raising funds, ect.); 1 days
This proposal for the training content will be probably valid also for other countries than
only for Hungary. As long as the training course will be modular, it can be universally used
in any country. The cluster managers have different skills in these fields, however, if the
opportunity of their own selection is provided, the course can be used in general.