The organisers intend to celebrate the legacy of Manchester’s status as a cradle of the Industrial Revolution that determined the global path for well-being creation by manufacturing and technologies, and later by services and creative industries. The conference theme also recognises how Manchester has shaped the people’s history and encouraged intellectual advancements on such important issues as workers’ rights, trade unions, co-operatives, civil rights, and liberal critique of the shortcomings of the capitalist system.

Special Session:

Special parallel sessions and roundtables with academics, practitioners and policymakers will be organised, including the focuses on “Manchester Industrial Relations-ADAPT”, "The Northern business powerhouse", "Co-operative business model for the future" and “Manchester Devolution and local economic policy”.

Special sessions designed for PhD students will also be organised.

The Special session will start with the presentation of ClusDev Med (Cluster Development Med), an H2020 RISE project, aimed at creating the conditions for the reinforcement of existing clusters in the Mediterranean Area with the support of other EU expertise and policies, in order to bridge the distance among different stakeholders and to find a way to create a common approach to solve the food-water-energy nexus already described.

Basing on the concept that international Cluster Cooperation offers opportunities to scale up research and technological potential and support the regional socio-economic development, the Cluster initiative inside this project shall be perceived as one instrument for the convergences of strategies in the GreenTech main frame. ClusDev Med aims at strengthening the food, water and energy sectors in these specific contexts, because they are, as many scientific research has proved, key factors for influencing socio-economic conditions of the related communities, and an excellent driver to reinforce working skills and opportunities.

The synergies between economy and society, academia and stakeholders in the food-water-energy sectors is developed in the new Quintuple Helix innovation model: an approach derived from the triple helix model of university- industry-government relations, with the addition  of the concept of ‘media-based and culture-based public’ and ‘civil society’, (Quadruple Helix), and  the ‘natural environments of society’ helix.

The Quintuple Helix underlines the necessary socio-ecological transition of the society in an eco-friendly socio-economic environment. Within this model, we passed from the economy of the products to the economy of the knowledge in which society and the economy should be seen as drivers for knowledge production and innovation, therefore defining opportunities for the knowledge economy.

In conclusion this special session shall be dedicated to the exploration and discussion the recent advances in the following field: CLUSTERS Innovation and Synergies and the Triple-Quintuple Helix transition.

ClusDev Med will participate the Special Session with the scope and discussion topic Innovation And Clusters In The Quintuple Helix Model.

Invited speakers from Clusdev Med:

• Manuela Tvaronaviciene(VGTU,Vilnius Gediminas Technical University)
• Najba El Amrani El Idirssi (USMBA,Universite Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah)
• Amr Radwan (ASRT, Academic of Scientific Research and Technology)
• Leonardo Piccinetti (REDINN, Rete Europea dell'Innovazione)