Andrii Borodiuk

The Ukrainian Cluster Alliance (UCA) is the national association uniting 42 clusters and over 2,500 SMEs across key industries and regions of Ukraine. As a central force in Ukraine’s cluster movement, UCA empowers SMEs through internationalization, innovation, and integration into European and global value chains. With broad national coverage and strong ties to 20+ international partners, UCA is a vital driver of industrial resilience and recovery. UCA has developed coordinated national-level activities covering all primary Ukrainian industries.

In Ukraine, UCA closely cooperates with the Cabinet of Ministries of Ukraine (incl. Ministry of economy of Ukraine), Export and entrepreneurship promotion office of Ukraine, 10+ Regional authorities and other State institutions.  These activities are strongly oriented toward the internationalization of Ukrainian clusters and supporting so-called ‘critical’ industries in Ukraine during war times. The UCA's structure aims to support and promote initiatives such as smart specialization, better integration into European value chains, innovations, digitalization, and green transition. The UCA provides strong value propositions and a wide range of services to its members in the mentioned area. In the internationalization area, UCA organizes business and trade missions and clusters-to-clusters meetings, provides services of ECCP and EEN platforms (by its partners), operates two own local platforms of matchmaking and innovative fundraising, and relies on aid and capabilities of many international partners. UCA developed and continuously improved the quality of the project portfolio for Resilience and Recovery of Ukraine. Today, it includes almost 50 projects oriented on both industrial ecosystems and developing value chains in various industries, such as Agrifood, Healthcare, Textile, Engineering, Machinery, Industrial Automation and IT, Utilities, and so on. UCA is actively seeking collaboration with EU clusters and cluster networks, international donors, development agenices, resilience-oriented projects, and innovation consortia.