Five French plant clusters have joined their strengths to expand their international strategy.
5 French clusters : Céréales Vallée, PEIFL, Qualimed, Qualitropic and VEGEPOLYS have created the Plant InterCluster network to embody the French plant skills all around the world.
The purpose of this network is to set up a common strategy to facilitate the international development of the clusters and their members (companies, training and research centers), to build strong partnerships with clusters around those sectors: cider, cereals, fruit and vegetables, ornamental horticulture, medicinal plants, mushrooms, seeds and winegrowing.
The first steps of this network are:
- The identification of 20 international plant clusters worldwide (with a specific survey carried during the last 6 months).
- The organization of the first meeting, the 25 and 26 of May in Paris, between the French clusters and some foreign ones already identified.
- The organization of a mission in the Chile-Brazil area
Other actions like common participation to conventions, exhibitions, international innovating projects will complete the program of the Plant Intercluster.
First Plant InterCluster Meeting - Paris, May 25 & 26
- The Plant InterCluster, is hosting a gathering of 22 international clusters from 15 countries, mainly in North and South America and Europe, at France's Ministry of Finance on the 25 and 26 May.
This opening meeting has a dual objective: to lay down the architecture for an operational international network, and to exchange and present French industry developments to clusters from other countries, particularly in the fields of agroecology in fruit and vegetable production, the eco-extraction of plants and plant extracts and varietal innovation to develop plants with natural resistance to bioagressors.
These meetings are a first step only; the consortium's ambition is to lay down the architecture for a global network to promote:
- exchanges of best practices in innovation governance, emergence and support and to envisage,
- technological cooperation and partnerships for innovation, and in particular to identify complementary international partners in order to remove technological bottlenecks
- international business opportunities (prospection and commercial ventures).
Download English Press release May 25