Regions around the world employ cluster-based policies as part of their industrial,
innovation and development policy mixes. They have become a key tool in smart
specialisation strategies and are increasingly used to address societal challenges.
Given their popularity and longevity, there is significant demand to better measure and
understand the impacts of cluster policies. Yet the diversity of cluster policies employed
in different regional competitiveness policy mixes, a complex effect logic and a variety
of (mostly intangible) outcomes, as well as few recognised norms for guiding cluster
policy evaluation, all hamper a more holistic understanding of their patterns of effects
and broader impacts. There lacks a common frame to guide cluster policy evaluation.
This paper reviews international evidence on the effects of cluster policy programmes
from academic and policy literature, which is then used as an input into a co-creation
process with groups of cluster policy-makers, practitioners and researchers. The result
is a proposal for a generalised framework of effects for cluster policies to support the
structuring of cluster policy evaluations and strengthen international policy learning
possibilities.