CASE STUDIES
We’ve been fortunate enough to work with clients in a range of industries, delivering growth strategy consulting, helping them to define their community investment strategies and build organizations that are the obvious choice in the hearts and minds of their customers, employees and the community. Below is an example of one of our successful projects.
LAUNCHING REGIONAL INNOVATION CLUSTERS ON SPACE COAST
THE CHALLENGE
With the pending NASA shuttle shutdown, the Space Coast region of Florida found itself struggling to define a strategy to respond. It would be a difficult task for the civic leaders on the Space Coast to manage the effects of the Shuttle shutdown in a growing economy, let alone the 2008 recession. Extended fiscal austerity at the local, state and federal levels represented another complicating factor to regional transformation. Given these limitations, we were motivated to design a new approach to economic development on the Space Coast
THE SOLUTION
Taking lessons from other regions around the world, we realized that acceleration of innovation can produce unparalleled productivity gains and jobs. We also considered the fact that regions possessing an entrepreneurial climate and success in small firm development create jobs at an accelerated rate. Cluster-based strategies, which focus on groups of similarly situated firms, are inherently more productive than strategies that focus on individual firms. Instead of focusing on one big target, economic development practitioners are better off investing in a portfolio of collaborative investments to support innovative companies that already operate within their region. Strong networks help companies gain access to these resources quickly. To compete in the global economy, regions with effective networks supported by strong clusters will gain a competitive edge.
From April 2010 to January 2013, Regionerate was hired to support a transition strategy for Space Coast stakeholders including representatives from government, workforce, education, private sector, and economic development. We introduced a useful framework to visualize regional innovation clusters and to coordinate collaborative actions. The regional roundtables generated new insights and strategies for a regional plan to support entrepreneurship networks, new regional innovation clusters and Talent Marketing initiatives. Regionerate then led a year long assessment of clusters identified by the task force in the Central Florida region, including:
- Clean and alternative energy
- Bio-life sciences
- Aviation/aerospace
- Information and Communications Technologies
- Homeland security/defense
Since then, Regionerate has supported the development of strategic technology partnerships for regional innovation with NASA, identified opportunities for partnerships with other federal agencies, and helped the region access diverse funding sources for ongoing support.