With this award, the Basque Energy Cluster joins a group of 66 other European clusters considered to be “excellent”, of which seven work in the fields of Energy and the Environment: three in Denmark, two in Norway, one in France and one in Austria.

The audit was carried out on 16 and 17 November 2017 at the Cluster’s offices in Bilbao by auditors Daniel Stürzebecher (expert at the ESCA - European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis) and Emma Vendrell (Head of Clusters en Acció, Government of Catalonia). David Fernández Terreros, from SPRI, acted as an observer.

31 indicators were assessed by means of interviews with the Cluster's manager and staff. The information that was collected was completed with the analysis of documents that supported the data and the results. Out of all the best-rated indicators, the definition of the Cluster’s strategy, the quality of its activities and services, the level of recognition in the media and the satisfaction level of partners all came top, supported by the results of the survey carried out in the first half of 2017.

The final result of the process was 84%, so the Basque Energy Cluster was awarded the Gold Label by the ESCA and the ECEI. It is the highest award for management excellence and will enable the Cluster to increase its international visibility and improve its position for projects and strategic initiatives in partnership with others.

European Gold Label for Cluster Excellence

The European Cluster Excellence Initiative (ECEI), promoted in 2009 by the European Commission’s Directorate General Enterprise and Industry, developed the “Cluster Organisation Management Excellence Label (Quality Label) GOLD”, as an independent and objective way of assessing excellence in cluster management across Europe.

The ESCA (European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis) is the entity authorised to organise and carry out the cluster audits. It assesses management excellence and proposes clusters for the Gold Label award, which is given by the ECEI Committee of Experts.

The TCE Project

The process to prepare and receive the Gold Label award took place within the framework of the European project named TCE - Towards Cluster Excellency, supported by the European Commission via the COSME programme for two years (2016 and 2017).

As part of this project, the Basque Energy Cluster collaborated with other European clusters: Merinova (Finland), EnergyIN (Portugal) and Paper Province (Sweden). It aims to increase its management skills and training, in order to offer higher value-added services to member companies, especially SMEs.

The Basque Energy Cluster analysed possible improvements to its service portfolio, received specific training in cluster management, and organised a series of visits to excellent clusters in Europe, amongst other things, with the aim of sharing best practices in management and identifying which areas can be improved.

This Gold Label award is the perfect way of concluding the Basque Energy Cluster’s participation in the project.