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This articlediscusses the trade-off between top-down and bottom-up policies to fostertechnology poles and clusters based on public-private R&D collaborations. Wepropose that both types of policies should be complemented to encourage localscience and technology networks and to link them with the national S&T policyorientation An extensiveliterature has emphasized bottom-up policies to foster public-private collaborationsand science and technologies poles and clusters (Longhi, 1999, Cooke andMorgan, 1994, Becattini, 2004, Howells, 2005; Ergas, 1987; Canter and Pyka 1999).This new policy standard acknowledges that the greater autonomy of decentralizedactors in problem solving and searching and the spontaneous propensity togenerate new linkages foster the emergence of new combinations of technologies(Arthur, 2009). Other authors have pointed out, however, that most paradigmaticcases of bottom-up-driven processes of technological developments such as IT industriesin US or software industry in Israel have been more or less deliberately promotedby strategic top-down public policies (Saxenian, 1985; Mazzucato, 2013; Breznitz,2007). This has been specially the cases of cutting edge new complex technologicalsystems, linked to national security and health. In emergentcountries like Argentina, where technological change refers mostly to adoptionand adaptation of preexistent technologies in well-defined trajectories, thediscussions about technological policies at local and national levels requiresto move beyond the antagonism between top-down and bottom-up perspectives. Forthat purpose, weanalyze three case studies of recent S&T clusters based onpublic-private partnerships located in different regions in Argentina: (i) a biotech-firm incubated by a national university, (ii) apublic-private partnership for innovation in bio-nanotechnology, led by anational university and (iii) the development of a software business cluster,boosted by a national University (Gutman and Lavarello, 2014, Lavarello et al2015; Rebori et al, 2011). Our conceptual framework startsrecognizing the importance of different types of proximity to identify thoseaspects that explain bottom-up processes (Morvan, 2001; Boschma, 2005). AsBoschma (2005) suggests, cluster emergence requires an intermediate degree oftechnological, organizational, social and institutional proximity, whichfacilitates and encourages the search for solutions to common problems. Anintermediate degree of technological proximitydefined by the complementarity between different technologies is a prerequisitefor all interactive learning process. It is also important to have intermediateorganizational proximity. Highorganizational (hierarchical) proximity favors the decision-making processeswhile low organizational proximity can avoid autonomous decisions of the actorspreventing the creation of new types of innovation in a context of greatertechnological opportunities. This conceptual framework suggests that social proximity must be alsointermediate. While belonging to the same scientific community can create trustrelationships between peers, social networks must remain open, since they allowintroducing novelty in interactions and avoid interpersonal conflict. Finally,it is important to consider the institutionalproximity, based on the relevance of sharing a set of norms, habits, codesand rules that govern the behavior of actors and reduce the uncertainty of theinnovation processes. As in the other cases, an excess of institutionalproximity is counterproductive to the extent that it can avoid openness to newtypes of rules and norms that may be conductive to innovation.Boschma (2005) proximity analysisis a good approach to analyze institutional learning processes at the regionallevel. Institutions involve norms, codes and rules defined at the regionallevel. In order to analyze the coherence between cluster development andnational S&T policy, this approach should integrate the distinction betweenlocal level institutions and rules and norms defined at the national level(property rights regimes, public procurement, publication norms, S&Tpolicy, among others). We enlarge thisapproach proposing that while a low institutional proximity involves lowregional /national complementarities which may result in regionallock-ins, high institutional proximitycomprises a low opportunities of regional innovation and differentiation.The cases andthe main results are presented in Table 1 (in Annex). The first case showsintermediate technological and social proximities and a high organizationalone, but a weak institutional proximity. The last feature, related to the absenceof an adequate institutional proximity with the National Innovation System,resulted in difficulties to transform this local development into sectoriallearnings in line with national health and technological priorities. The second case has got an intermediatetechnological proximity resulting from an intermediate organizational proximitywhich avoided technological lock in. This has been coupled by intermediateinstitutional proximity between localized institutional learning and nationalpolicies and institutions (S&T policy, embryonic public procurementprograms) and high openness to new social relationships. Though, the resulting lowsocial proximity between University teams and new public procurement agencieshas limited trust needed for user-producer learning.The third caseillustrates the development of an autonomous process that gave rise to softwarecluster. Local policies, mostly from University and local government, initiallyfoster this cluster, but the recent growth is explained mostly by the increasingdemand for outsourcing developments. In this scenario, the linkages withuniversity weakened, and social proximity compensated low organizationalproximity among firms and other local actors.In this article,we go beyond the local organizational and social proximity requirements analyzingthe institutional proximity between incipient S&T poles and clusters andnational S&T policies. We argue that top down andbottom up policies and institutions are necessary to boost the technological catching-up process in emergingcountries, since organizational and social proximities are key for identifyingS&T opportunities and potential areas for local capacity building, whileinstitutional proximity between local institutional learning and national policiesassure the national coherence of innovation systems. The analyzed cases suggest that policiesimplemented at national and local levels have helped in generatingopportunities to link and shorten the distance between actors. However it is not clear their coordination withnational S&T orientation, highlighting the risks of isolating the local technologicalcapacities building from national S&T policies.

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