European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency
2022
IMP³ROVE, European Clusters Alliance, InPulse Partners SRL, Agrifood Lithuania, Eurada, IN-TRACTO, LOW, VDI/VDE
The European Innovation Scoreboard 2021 classifies Lithuania as a “moderate innovator” – with very high values for digital skills as well as the innovative power of small and medium-sized companies. The Vilnius region is even referred to as a “Strong Innovator.”
The service sector accounts for around 60 percent of Lithuania’s gross domestic product. Nearly 70 percent of the working population work in this branch. Industry accounts for almost 25 percent of Lithuania’s economic output, with around a quarter of the workforce involved in this sector. Particularly information and communication technologies and digital business areas contributed to Lithuania’s stable economic growth between 2010 and 2020.
Lithuania’s foreign trade presents a complex picture: Russia is their main trading partner outside the EU. But China and Ukraine also play an important role for many Lithuanian sectors. Overall, imported raw materials from Russia and Ukraine make a significant contribution to the Lithuanian economy.
In Lithuania there are 50 cluster organisations, the majority of which are based in the capital. They are involved in many cross-border co-operations within the EU, especially with countries like Spain and Latvia (via the EU’s European Strategic Cluster Partnerships program) and Belgium, Germany, and France (via the EU’s INNOSUP-1 initiative).
Lithuania’s smart specialisation strategies from 2014 to 2020 concentrated on seven areas. Through the implementation of these strategies, a large part of the European Regional Development Fund budget has been linked to these priorities.
The European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) is a European Union initiative. It helps cluster organisations in Europe and beyond to network, communicate, and collaborate. As part of the consortium led by IMP³ROVE, Prognos is driving forward the further development of the platform into a single point of contact for cluster organisations in Europe.
Among other things, we are responsible for producing input papers for regional workshops. In April 2022 the second “Clusters meet Regions” event was held. It was dedicated to Lithuania and the Baltic States, as well as the issue of resilient supply chains.
The input paper for the event, “Clusters as driving forces for regional development and growth – taking Lithuania as an example” first presents the economic profile of the country. The second chapter deals with the importance of cluster organisations for regional economic development. The third chapter discusses cross-border cooperation between clusters and their networking within the EU. The last chapter analyses Lithuania’s smart specialisation strategies for the period 2014–2020.
Read the investigation (PDF, clustercollaboration.eu)
Project team: Dr Jan-Philipp Kramer, Aneta Sadlik, Marie-Kristin Komendzinski, Lennart Galdiga, Maximilian Welford
Last update: 27.03.2023
Vice Director, Head of EU Services
Consultant
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Prognos is one of the oldest economic research centres in Europe. Founded at the University of Basel, Prognos experts have been conducting research for a wide range of clients from the public and private sectors since 1959 – politically independent, scientifically sound.