ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades or so, there has been an enormous scholarly and policy interest
in regional clusters. While the term “cluster” was introduced by Michael Porter in the
1990s (Porter, 1990, 1998), the origins of the notion can be traced back to Marshall’s
(1920) influential work on industrial districts. Nowadays, clusters have become an essen-
tial ingredient of regional development and innovation strategies in many parts of the
