Our goal

The TCI Oceania Chapter aims to create a sense of community among cluster practitioners and organisations from Australia, New Zealand, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, and to generate synergies and joint action among participants.

There has never been a time when connecting, responding, and innovating our way through crisis events has been more important. Where experts in clusters and innovation ecosystems interact there is a powerhouse of opportunity that lets us do that.

What are clusters?

“Today’s economic map of the world is characterized by ‘clusters.’ A cluster is a geographic concentration of related companies, organizations, and institutions in a particular field that can be present in a region, state, or nation. Clusters arise because they raise a company's productivity, which is influenced by local assets and the presence of like firms, institutions, and infrastructure that surround it.” 
(Harvard Business School (2023) What are clusters?)

“Clusters also often extend downstream to channels and customers and laterally to manufacturers of complementary products and to companies in industries related by skills, technologies, or common inputs. Finally, many clusters include governmental and other institutions—such as universities, standards-setting agencies, think tanks, vocational training providers, and trade associations—that provide specialized training, education, information, research, and technical support”.  
(Porter (1998) Clusters and the New Economics of Competition. Harvard Business Review) 

“The most important reason to focus on clusters is ‘because they are there’. It is the very ubiquity of clusters that tells us they are a fact of economic life that need to be understood and leveraged if we are to foster economic development.”  
(Professor Michael Enright, quoted in Ffowcs-Williams (2016) Cluster Development Handbook, page 8.)

Cluster theory is based on the notion that clusters have certain characteristics that contribute to enhance innovation, growth and competitiveness of regions and the companies which are part of clusters. However, some potential synergies within a cluster are latent and can be enlivened and exploited through an informed and focussed cluster initiative: 

  • Increased innovation and technology capacity 

  • Networking and trust-building 

  • Human resources upgrading 

  • Business development 

  • Economic development 

The TCI Network, and its Oceania, Latin America and Asia Chapters exist to facilitate and support these initiatives.