The talk drew on a number of international examples, such as Silicon Valley, Cambridge's own ‘Silicon Fen', Manchester's creative industries cluster, Philips Eindhoven Campus and Unilever's Colworth Park.

A Cambridge University lecturer has given the keynote address at a major conference aimed at encouraging hi-tech and enterprise clusters in Japan.

The IfM's Dr Tim Minshall, was the only non-Japanese speaker at the recent 2010 Japan Cluster Conference in Tokyo.

The conference was designed to help improve the country's international competiveness and to look at how industry, government and education can work together to foster innovation.

Dr Minshall's talk, called 'Developing Internationally Competitive Clusters', looked at  ways in which open innovation can support cluster development and visa versa.

The talk drew on a number of international examples, such as Silicon Valley, Cambridge's own ‘Silicon Fen', Manchester's creative industries cluster, Philips Eindhoven Campus and Unilever's Colworth Park.

Structured around the resurgence of interest in clusters from policymakers, the talk also examined the role clusters can play in recovery from economic downturns, addressing global challenges, and the changing nature of innovation.

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