MarMED main goal was to provide substantial contribution to the upskilling of Maritime Clusters Managers responding to the emerging needs of increasing the level of innovation and competitiveness for this professional profile of the Blue Economy. Accordingly, it aimed also to enhance job opportunities and career development in the sector. In detail, MarMED project enabled the Consortium to achieve the following objectives: 1. Bridging the gap between the existing needs and the current skillset of Maritime Clusters Managers ensuring upskilling of human resources and the outline of an innovative professional profile for an increased competitiveness of Maritime Cluster in the Mediterranean area and, overall, the boosting of innovation and sustainable growth in the Blue Economy Area. 2. Establishing a viable cooperation mechanism between research entities/VET Providers and industry to enable Mediterranean Maritime Clusters to become drivers in the domain of the Blue Economy Innovation and Sustainable Growth in the area and beyond.
Clusters are important contributors for the green economy. They are essential policy tools for supporting sustainable growth and jobs across the Mediterranean as well as boosters for innovation and diversification of the Blue Economy. However, although cluster management is highly demanding and requires a large set of skills, to date training opportunities are still too few for the present and future maritime cluster. Therefore, MarMED aims to fill this gap providing substantial contributions to the upskilling and reskilling of current and future Managers of maritime clusters. Throughout its contribution, MarMED successfully addressed the following needs: 1. Ecosystem level: lack of adequate training and poor staff development; 2. Labour Market Level: lack of definition for the role of a Cluster Manager and the necessary set of skills; 3. Training system level: lack of mission-oriented training course in the Mediterranean region for Cluster Manager; and the 4. Professional development level: as cluster management requires innovation, knowledge, and hard and soft skills, there is a lack of a systemic multi-level approach to leadership and cooperation in view of new professional profiles.