CHRISTOPH MATTHIAS REISS-SCHMIDT

Christoph Matthias Reiss-Schmidt holds a Bachelor´s Degree in Politics and Administration of FernUniversität of Hagen (Germany) and a Master´s Degree in Public Health of Maastricht University (the Netherlands). At Business Upper Austria he is coordinator and head of third-party funded projects on national and international level and responsible for international (strategic) project development and international affairs. He is/was in charge of EU-projects such as the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (Phase 2 as Lead partner), the European Cluster Excellence Initiative, CLUSTRAT, SME-Internationalization through Clusters etc. Furthermore, he was in charge of organizing the European Cluster Conference 2012 in Vienna. Additionally, he is Benchmarking Expert, Silver- and Gold Label Assessor, trainer of the European Foundation of Cluster Excellence, member of the technical advisory board of the European Secretariat of Cluster Analysis, is conducting a vast variety of cluster management trainings incl. strategy- and service development and is a renowned speaker within and outside Europe. Finally, he is lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Burgenland (Master: European Studies – Management of EU-Projects: Project 1 and Project 2)