Fig. 3

Industry distribution of the cluster initiatives in comparison. Source: Accompanying evaluation of the LECC, based on an own inquiry (date: November 2013). The LECC had an above average number of applications from cluster initiatives in the fields of biotechnology and medical technology. A possible cause may be that several funding programmes for networks and clusters in this industry have been conducted in the past (e.g. BioRegio), which led to the development of structures that were beneficial in the LECC candidacy. This is true not only for the group of candidates, but even more for successful initiatives: The share of biotechnology and medical technology clusters is even higher in the 15 Leading-Edge Clusters