ABSTRACT
When the European Commission talks about building alliances, it invites entrepreneurs, scientists and (local) politicians to outline their plans. There usually is a lot of lobbying involved because there is much money to distribute. National politicians will show ambitious investment plans to indicate how seriously they take the proposed alliance. But in these EC alliances, eventually the parties will have to get down to business and find solutions to practical problems. In this chapter, I focus on the Drachten case. In this provincial town in the north of the Netherlands, an alliance was built that cleverly (and fortuitously) avoids many of the pitfalls associated with Sharing Brainpower.
