The Sustainable Development Conference in Lviv on 5-7 June brought together more than 100 people from Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Greece.
The main goal of the forum was to identify priorities for interregional cooperation and future recovery between clusters and regional communities in Ukraine, Poland, and other countries. Equally important were the exchanges between authorities, clusters, communities, and researchers on areas of possible cooperation. This report summarises the results of the International Event.
Three days of the International Lviv Conference on cluster cooperation: an overview of key events
On 5 June, the participants of the forum gathered in the town of Horodok, Lviv region. Two buses were moving towards each other: one from Krakow and the other from Lviv, and despite the unpredictable border crossing time, they met almost on schedule. A total of 35 foreign participants (Poland, Germany, Greece) and 30 Ukrainian representatives of business, government and the cluster community came to the Town.
Zakhid Resource is the first unique logistics complex in Ukraine, which has been operating since 2010. It occupies 40 hectares of land and is the site of a new industrial park. In addition to the long-established office and warehouse facilities and a customs office, the territory includes several processing plants and large areas for fruit plantations and ornamental plants. There are two airports, motorways and railways nearby and it is only 70 km to the Polish border. Thus, the complex is in a very favourable position for the development of EU-oriented industrial production.
Henry Sterenberg, Founder of EoT Global Inc. (USA) and President of WTC Kyiv, talks about large-scale plans to deploy 10+ different areas, which are planned to be grouped into clusters. The event in Horodok Industrial Park included a tour of the territory, a presentation of the park and informal communication. The hosts welcomed the guests with open arms, and the park itself made a strong positive impression on all participants.
On 6 June, the exchanges continued in the format of a conference at Lviv Polytechnic. The participants presented existing initiatives and opportunities in the fields of construction and composite materials, sustainable infrastructure, Industry 4.0, interregional cooperation, development of innovative ecosystems, etc.
Jerzy Kopec, representative of the Małopolska Voivodeship, called on the conference participants to intensify Polish-Ukrainian cooperation and assured them that the voivodeship’s leadership would make every effort to help Ukraine rebuild. “The Mayors’ Club”, represented by Yuliya Chufistova and strategic partner Henry Sterenberg, provided comprehensive information on the capabilities of this community of communities and mayors and presented their vision of the future of Ukraine’s recovery.
The presentation by Anatolii Dolynnyi, Head of the UCA Smart City RC, focused on the projects and development programmes of the UCA in this market segment. The presentation by Yuriy Shchyrin from the Industrial Marketing Agency successfully complemented the presentation by Andrzej Czulak (CEO of the Composite Materials Cluster from Poland) – both presentations provided an opportunity to take a fresh look at the prospects for production in Ukraine, taking into account the needs of the construction industry and others.
Daniel Kessler, Head of the Hub4Industry platform, eDIH, from Krakow, made an interesting presentation. Numerous services for SMEs in the field of Industry 4.0 have already been deployed here and have been significantly expanded through operating laboratories, test sites and test benches from leading providers in the Hub4Industry consortium.
The exchanges in the format of 3 roundtable discussions in the afternoon were rich and comprehensive and really demonstrated to the participants what clusters are and what they can do.
One of these roundtables was dedicated to the development of the Photonics cluster initiative – scientists and entrepreneurs from the Kyiv and Lviv ecosystems in this sector came together for the first time to exchange views on the development of this industry. They were accompanied online by Mike Richardson from the German OptecBB cluster, who is the main initiator of the corresponding cluster initiative in Ukraine.
The presentations and discussions on 7 June remained at the same high professional level. The new perspectives and frameworks of “superclusters” on sustainable development provided by Florian Andrews, a German consultant from Gruner Hering, were very valuable.
Andriy Gnap, co-founder of Waste Ukraine Analytics, spoke about public information in the open data format and how public registers and various services based on them can help accelerate Ukraine’s transition to a circular and low-carbon economy.
Irena Łobocka from the Polish Sustainable Infrastructure Cluster presented the story of how her own cluster converted several categories of stakeholders into supporters of passive building development. The result was that today there are dozens of such buildings in Krakow and the regions.
Awareness and awareness of cluster members and wider categories is the key to penetrating new technologies or approaches. And unlike the Ukrainian clusters, which are just starting such massive campaigns to promote innovations to their markets, the German and Polish clusters hold dozens of innovation days a year.
Sotiris Bouzeas from Greece presented his TIASI supercluster and, answering the panel’s questions about the role of clusters in sustainable regional development, clearly stated that it is about generating and implementing the right projects. This is exactly what the UCA focuses on, and the Burshtyn+ programme, as the first major programme to transform a single-industry area from the UCA, is a logical demonstration of this approach.
Tverdyslav Filatov from the ASTAR agency presented the programme and emphasised the benefits of inter-cluster cooperation (3 UCA clusters are already involved in the programme), as well as numerous aspects of sustainable development.
The day ended with a visit to the Lviv Startup School. This is a project of Lviv Polytechnic and has been running for over 5 years with the support of numerous stakeholders. Over the past 2 years, significant progress has been made: a new biotechnology laboratory has been opened, new incubation and pre-acceleration programmes have been launched, the involvement of Polytechnic students in innovative developments has increased significantly, and there are many new projects supported by grant funding. The key role in this development belongs to the project leader Nazar Podolchak. Unfortunately, he was absent from Lviv at the time, but his team coped with all the tasks of supporting the event “perfectly”.
The main results of the conference
The conference was an important next step in the development of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance and our cooperation with partners.
For the first time, we demonstrated the capacity of the UCA in cooperation with foreign partners to hold international conferences in Ukraine. Almost 40 foreign guests, 4 clusters from 3 countries (Poland, Germany, and Greece), with a strong Polish delegation, are a good marker for the future of such events in Ukraine. And their importance is obvious in view of the numerous restrictions on Ukrainian men travelling abroad. And in Lviv, this had an immediate effect, as I will discuss later.
The conference was the first large-scale event of the UCA to bring together all stakeholders in the sustainable development of Ukraine’s regions. And although the presence of communities, mayors, regional administrations, including the Lviv region, was below our expectations, this did not prevent the UCA from developing its sustainable development agenda with those regions that demonstrate readiness. And the establishment of close relations and cooperation with the Małopolska Voivodeship, the Sustainable Infrastructure Cluster from Poland and the German agency Gruner Hering should be considered a clear success.
The forum produced the first agreement on cooperation between Ukrainian, Polish and German partners in 3 key areas:
1. Cooperation in future projects of the Restoration of Ukraine
2. Launch of strategic cluster cooperation by industry and segment, including
- Interregional cooperation between Ukraine and Poland (including Interreg NEXT programmes).
- Launch of the Ukraine-Poland Joint Committee in the field of Smart.Industry.
- Development of cooperation between participants of innovation ecosystems.
3. Organization of communication tools for exchanges and support in the online environment.
In these areas, the first systematic developments have been recorded, including the formulation of the context and challenges, a list of key actors and contacts from clusters and partners, as well as current proposals and projects under consideration. Regarding point 3, with the help of Slovak partners, the UCA has launched the platform “Cluster Cooperation in Sustainable Regional Development” on a permanent basis. Any expert from Ukraine, the EU, or other countries can join it and have access to materials, experts, and current proposals.
Evaluating the dynamics and effectiveness of our cooperation with EU clusters, it is worth noting that this forum is a direct result of the Kosice Cluster meets regions conference in late March 2023. It was there that the Ukrainian and Polish clusters agreed to hold the forum in Lviv. The fact that the partners managed to organize and hold an event of this scale in just 2 months shows the very high potential of clusters and our cooperation. Clusters are truly becoming drivers of development, not only in their countries or regions, but also in international cooperation.
Of particular importance for the UCA is the launch of new cluster initiatives that are very important for the country’s economy. In Lviv, significant progress has been made in 2 areas:
- The Photonics cluster initiative is gaining new momentum. This became possible due to the unification of the sector’s ecosystems from Kyiv and Lviv. The Kyiv community was represented by the head of the initiative, Oleksandr Bondarenko from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Lviv was represented by key developers and scientists from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and Lviv Polytechnic. The role of coordinator and communicator for Lviv was perfectly fulfilled by Oleksa Voznyak from the Franko University, who is also a member of the Lviv City Council. The participants of the meeting in Lviv exchanged information and best practices and developed a plan of first steps.
- A new cluster initiative, Advanced Materials, was created in Lviv, led by Andriy Strelchenko (CEO of Prostir 3D from Lviv). Andriy had only a 2-week acquaintance with the UCA community, attended all 3 days of the forum, and this was enough to make an important decision to consolidate the participants in the Ukrainian sector of composites and other advanced materials in this category.
The event also contributed to the establishment of relations between other UCA clusters with foreign colleagues and among themselves.
The forum in Lviv was held thanks to the financial and media support of the EEN-Ukraine consortium, with many thanks to our colleagues and, in particular, to the consortium member Association of Industrial Automation Enterprises of Ukraine (APPAU), whose team took over the main functions of organizing and conducting the event.
Feedback from guests and participants
Guests and participants of the forum highly appreciate the level and results of the event.
We saw and experienced first-hand the energy and effort that our Ukrainian colleagues are putting into these resilience and recovery projects. Engagement in the cluster environment, as this visit has shown, is crucial for their implementation and provides access to the latest trends, new technologies and best practices in our industry, comments Andrzej Czulak, Head of the Composite Materials Cluster from Poland, in his Linkedin post.
Everything went at a high level. We see positive energy, which is very inspiring for us – Irena Lobocka, Head of the Polish Sustainable Infrastructure Cluster
We were inspired by the Ukrainian vision and initiatives to rebuild and reform their country. We have seen and experienced first-hand how much energy and effort our Ukrainian colleagues are putting into this. Together with our Polish partners, we were able to identify areas where composites can play an important role. The modernisation of damaged residential buildings and civil infrastructure, as well as medical applications, are among the most urgent to mention. But even as it faces these challenges, Ukraine is also striving to implement sustainable development guidelines in line with EU norms. “The circular economy is taken as seriously here as anywhere else in Europe,” Martin Kretschmann, project manager of the German Composites Cluster, notes in his post.
Andrii Hnap, CEO of Waste Ukraine Analytics and Head of the UCA Sustainable Industry Committee, took part in several speeches and panels and comments on his impressions:
“It is interesting to note the different context of the discussion with colleagues from different countries. While some Ukrainian colleagues were just discovering the concept of the circular economy, European colleagues were already talking about their implementations, successes, and upcoming activities. We are pleased that our Polish and German colleagues highly appreciate the work of our Sustainable Industry Committee.
“The Forum fulfilled its goal of high-quality international networking – in particular, I immediately found a partner for myself to submit a joint application for grant funding in an international project.” – Tetiana Vorontsova, Head of the Rivne Interregional Medical Cluster.
We had several days of very high-quality work at the C2C (Cluster-2-Clusters) level. The impressions are great. The cluster coordinators from Germany, Poland and Greece performed very well, but our cluster managers also held their own. The excursion to the innovation hubs of Lviv Polytechnic was very informative.
Oleh Demchuk, Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Catholic Association, Head of ASTAR Agency from Khmelnytskyi.
The UCA Executive Directorate sincerely thanks all foreign and Ukrainian partners of the event, our experts and clusters, and participants for their active participation and support in holding the conference.
The original article is available in Ukrainian here.
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