As a result of the evaluation performed by the ESCA experts in the period November 2015 – January 2016, 8 Romanian cluster organisations were awarded the Silver Label of the European Cluster Excellence Initiative for cluster management: Transylvanian Furniture Cluster (North West Region), Agro Transylvania (North West Region), Indagro Pol (agricultural machinery – Region Bucharest Ilfov), Romanian Textile Concept (Region Bucharest Ilfov), Elinclus (electronics – Region Bucharest Ilfov), Green Energy (Region Centre), iTech Transylvania (IT&C – Region North West), ROSENC (renewable energy – Region West).

With 8 “silver clusters”, Romania ranks 2nd in Europe (after Germany). In addition, we wish to remark that there are 24 Romanian cluster organisations awarded the Bronze Label. This achievement represents an outstanding performance in line with the ambitious objectives assumed by the Romanian Cluster Association – CLUSTERO, that “of putting Romania on the European Cluster Map”. Above all, it is a well - deserved recognition of the efforts and commitment of the cluster management teams who struggled to support a sustainable competitive development of their member SMEs based on innovation and internationalisation, while facing a rather unfavourable national context, marked by lack of continuity and inconsistency in terms of cluster policy and corresponding financial and non-financial support schemes.