On the 21th and 22nd of November, Santiago de Compostela hosted the closing session of the CIP CALL program for the ATC4 Excellence consortium. A round-table and keynote lectures marked this special day.

ATC4 Excellence is one of the four consortiums from across Europe that participated in the CIP CALL training program, directed and coordinated by the European Foundation for Cluster Excellence. The ATC4 Excellence consortium is composed by members from institutions of economic development from Ireland, northern Portugal and the Spanish regions of Galicia, Cantabria and Asturias.

During the two days, leaders of the participating organizations, as well as political and business officials, shared their knowledge and experiences related to their participation in the project.

Among the conferences held, the round-table entitled “Achieving the excellence in clusters” proved to bring food for thought to the audience. Its protagonists were Gloria Ferrer, from the European Foundation for Cluster Excellence, Florian Plocek, from the Cluster Collaboration Platform (CCP) and Helmut Kergel, from the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA).

Another highlight came with the lecture of keynote speaker Antoni Subirà, President of EFCE, and with the case studies presented by former participants in the Foundation's Train-the-Trainers training programme:

Claire Davis (SWRA) presented her project on Wedding tourism in Ireland.
Monika Marr (SODERCAN), Clara García and Jaime Fernández (IDEPA) presented their project on Gourmet food in Cantabria and Asturias.
Manuel Fernández (IGAPE) presented his project in Textile in northern Portugal and Galicia.

This conference concluded the participation of ATC4 Excellence in the CIP CALL program with an excellent rating from the organization.