The event, that gathered over 500 participants mainly from Russia, was organized by the Cluster Development Center of St. Petersburg – subdivision of JSC "St. Petersburg Technopark". The conference was supported by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Committee for Industrial Policy and Innovations of St. Petersburg, as well as relevant federal and regional ministries and departments. This has been the largest specialized event in Russia on cluster cooperation.

One of the important results of the Conference is the adoption of the resolution containing recommendations for the federal and regional executive government bodies. For instance, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation received propositions for expanding the list of support services for small and medium-sized businesses.

As anticipated in last TCI Global Conference in Eindhoven, Russia has conceived in cluster policy starting from 2008 and later on has implemented different cluster programs at federal level: first in the Ministry of Economic Development (with a clear focus on innovation) and, more recently, with another program launched by the Ministry of Industry and Trade focusing on industrial clusters. Additionally other cluster development initiatives exists at local level like it is the case of Saint Petersburg Cluster Development Center (http://www.spbcluster.ru/en/) or other example in the Moscow, Novosibirsk or Samara region just to mention a few.

A comprehensive database of cluster initiatives could be found at http://map.cluster.hse.ru/ and summarized in this presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/evgenykutsenko/russian-cluster-initiatives-mapping-03112015-eng.

The event showed the great interest that cluster policies and methodologies for cluster development are raising in Russia and highlighted the main recent trends like FDI attraction, enterprise modernization or cluster management professionalization among others. Finally, some participants envisaged more cooperation of Russian clusters with international counterparts as well as more visibility of the work undergone in the world largest country.