Mariacristina Piva

Local policies are becoming more and more important in policy makers’ strategy because they handle specific needs of territories and guarantee a sustainable socio-economic development. With this awareness, the Faculty of Economics of the Università Cattolica of Piacenza has organized the «Cluster Policies and Local Development» seminar (held in Cremona on the 2nd-3rd July 2004). This volume contains revised versions of papers presented at the workshop. The aim is to contribute to the debate related to the role of cluster policies in supporting and enhancing local development. With this focus in mind researchers from all over Europe deal with hot topics such as cluster policies and the ‘inter-sectoral’ dimension of clusters, the relation between clusters and other economic and local networks, the role of cluster policies focused on the adoption of new technologies and concept of cluster-based technology policy. The book is divided into two parts: the first one collects the main research contributions (Cluster theory at work) and, for each one of them, the comments made by the discussants; the second part offers shorter contributions of speakers invited to present their ‘on-the field experiences’ (Cluster policies in practice: some Italian experiences). Overall, this volume might be considered a collection of theoretical and practical cases all related to clusters and cluster policies in more and less advanced and developed areas.