The role of clusters in supporting French automotive industry’s competitiveness and innovation

Authors

Thomas Röhr, Pôle Véhicule du Futur, ESTA School of Business & Technology

Year

2019

Summary

The European automotive industry is one of the most performant ones in the world, and the sector is crucial for Europe’s economy. The automotive sector directly and indirectly employs 13.3 million Europeans, representing 6.1% of total EU employment. The European automotive export totalled 5.9 million motor vehicles in 2017 worth a trade surplus of €90.3 billion. The sector is also a key driver of knowledge and innovation, representing Europe's largest private contributor to R&D, with nearly than €54 billion invested (2016) and more than 8 700 European patents granted to the sector
(2017).
Today, the European automotive industry faces multiple challenges regarding their product (e.g. need for electrification of cars, connected and autonomous vehicles), competition (with new arrivals: Google, Tesla...), changing behaviours (shared mobility), data becoming more important than the cars but also industrial modernisation and digitalisation. Therefore, new approaches for innovation and competiveness in products, processes, production and people’s future skills are necessary.
Clusters bring together companies, research and training institutions, funding actors, economic development agencies and public authorities in a given geographical zone and in a selected domain for the benefit of their regional ecosystem. Via European and international inter-cluster cooperation the added-value for members can be even multiplied. Clusters are the key entry for the automotive (and mobility) industry to face the above-mentioned challenges.
After a short presentation of the significance of the automotive industry for the French economy, the present article describes the two automotive cluster ecosystems present in France before focussing on the cluster Pole Vehicule du Futur (PVF) and the two European inter-cluster cooperation projects EACN and PAE, both co-funded by the European Union. The article closes with a conclusion.

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