And strong clusters promote both inward investment and growth in indigenous business. 3.5 One constraint is that, as a small economy, Scotland cannot develop the necessary critical mass and support the infrastructure necessary for a wide range of unrelated industries. It is not therefore possible for Scotland to be competitive in all clusters. This makes it vital that we have research strengths in Scottish HEIs and research institutes that are linked as closely as possible to those areas of business in which Scotland can compete most effectively. In answer to the first, the aim is to diversify the economy in two important ways.
Clusters can help generate new or future industries.
Cluster strategies also encourage higher value functions such as research and development thereby diversifying the economy away from its over specialisation on the manufacturing function. The approach is not intended to constrain academic freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research. The Government supports such research through its funding because it underpins basic wealth creation. However, clustering does mean looking for areas of complimentarity between our basic research strength and our business potential. This was the background to the taskforce's approach.