Today, Ukraine urgently needs to create effective mechanisms for encouraging innovation. Among such mechanisms, one finds industrial clusters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clusters are ephemeral networks of businesses and governmental and educational organizations connected through joint activities. They can therefore exist even if there are no formal cluster organizations uniting their members. Cluster organizations, on the other hand, are communities of cluster members led by cluster organizers, and conducting events, educational and marketing activities, and lobbying the interests of cluster members. There can be several cluster organizations per cluster, and cluster organizations can come and go while clusters remain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 22 Ukrainian regions have active IT clusters now. The five leading clusters are in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odesa and these larger cities have dominated the cluster landscape for at least ten years now. More recently, smaller cities such as Mariupol, Ternopil, Rivne, and Kryvyi Rih have been getting more active, and we expect that within 2-3 years, some of these smaller clusters may enter the big leagues of Ukrainian IT Clusters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n