The Competitiveness Institute

The Competitiveness Institute, or TCI, is an international non-profit that focuses on economic development, industry clusters, and innovation systems. The organization is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, and its 800 members come from more than 60 countries. Through a variety of annual conferences, symposia, and publications, TCI seeks to provide an international arena where cluster practitioners, regional developers, and policy makers can meet and exchange best practices, and where global companies can find new partners and advice from cluster professionals.

The TCI Cluster Fundamentals

At their core, TCI conferences concentrate on active dialogue, the exchange of ideas and the sharing of successful experiences using cluster methodologies. The goal of the organization is to ultimately “improve living standards and the local competitiveness of regions throughout the world, by fostering cluster-based development initiatives” [http://competitiveness.org/article/archive/1/] . Since 2005, conferences have emphasized the importance of [innovation journalism] and how media attention focused on innovation economies can provide a boost in competitiveness, as it creates a common language for public discussion of innovation. TCI believes that, “Supporting development of independent innovation journalism can be a part of competitiveness and cluster initiatives, just like supporting independent political journalism has been a part of developing democracy” [http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/10/prweb446806.htm] .

Membership

More than 800 economic development professionals are members of TCI and they come from more than 60 countries [http://competitiveness.org/article/articleview/114/1/1/Welcome%20to%20The%20Competitiveness%20Institute] . There are three types of members:
*Ordinary Members can be individual cluster practitioners with at least two years of proven experience in cluster projects.
*Supporting Members come from non-profit organizations, government agencies, or multilateral organizations dedicated to fostering economic development
*Honorary Members are nominated by the Board of Directors in recognition for their contribution to the Association.

Leadership

The TCI Board of Advisors provides advice and valuable leadership to the association, as they possess extensive experience with cluster initiatives. These noteworthy experts and policy makers come from backgrounds in business, the political world, and with international development institutions. The board includes:
*Thomas Andersson
*Sergio Arzeni
*Michael Best
*Emiliano Duch
*Piero Formica
*Ifor Ffowcs-Williams
*Eric Hansen
*Tea Petrin
*Hubert Schmitz
*Örjan Sölvell
*Bert Twaalfhoven

Conferences

The first TCI conference took place in Barcelona, Spain, in 1998. Since then, annual conferences have been held in [Varese] , Glasgow, Tucson, Cairns, Gothenburg, Hong Kong and Lyon and the [http://www.Clusters2007.com 2007 conference] is slated for October 8-12, 2007, in Portland, Oregon. This year's themes will be collaboration, Innovation, and Sustainability.The 2006 conference in Lyon, sponsored by the region of Rhône-Alpes, le Grand Lyon and The French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry, MINEFI brought in 437 attendees from 62 countries [http://www.reporter7.com/7573/all-time-high-number-of-participants.htm] .