AFPC's Missions
Established on the 16th December of 2013 with the support of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and the DGE (Minister for the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs), AFPC aims to achieve three missions:
Mission 1 Enhance the role of clusters in the innovation dynamics with the government and the regions
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The AFPC will promote the coordination of actions of the various clusters and the development of inter-clusters collaborations. It will also work in synergy with other innovation ecosystems as France Cluster, RETIS or CapinTech, particularly in the context of the coordination platform launched on the 23rd October of 2013.
The aim is to underline the many achievements in the various territorial ecosystems, in terms of product innovation, businesses and job creation. The purpose carried on by the AFPC is to increase public funding granted to them and to ensure the involvement of clusters in different plans, channels and programs initiated, including the Ministry for Industrial Renewal of France: accelerate deployment of the Industry of the Future and the nine industrial solutions in France and internationally.
Mission 2 Be the voice of the Clusters
and their Members for National
and European Authorities
At a European level, AFPC will interact with the European Commission in the framework of "smart Specialization strategies" in coordination with regions to expand collaborations with clusters and EU organizations.
AFPC will also seek to involve a greater number of companies in community programs such as Horizon 2020 or COSME. While Germany and the Scandinavian countries have structured and coordinated their innovative policy ecosystems, France needs to strengthen it's European presence.
Mission 3 Support and Promote the Clusters' SMBs Members
This committee will focus on facilitating access to private funding for innovative business. Financing is key to ensure the growth of SMBs, establish their competitiveness and enable them to become intermediate-sized businesses with a French influence in international markets.
As such, AFPC will follow up on the "EIP" Label established in June 2010 and which is subject to a chart signed by 55 clusters. SMBs labelled EIP by their clusters have close support of professionals throughout fundraising.
Moreover, AFPC will support SMBs on several of their major growth drivers: Business, Access to public procurement contracts, Access to purchases of the large industrial groups,...