Achievements of the Lisbon and Gothenburg Strategy Objectives by INTERREG

Problems addressed
The problem addressed by the ALSO project lays on the following urgent needs:
• to boost the Lisbon and Gothenburg Strategy Objectives at regional level and more specifically, to exploit current INTERREG and future Territorial Cooperation Funding within the framework of INTERACT;
• A strong coordination between regional planners and INTERREG operators/project managers in order to better transpose into INTERREG the regional programming activity;
• An effective and increased participation in INTERREG both from candidate countries, neighbouring countries and new member states; 
• Effective evaluation methods and set of indicators at Programme Management level in order to evaluate INTERREG projects impacts;
• Common tools of communication and better instruments in order to diffuse the INTERREG results at regional, national and European level;
• Specific training of regional planners and INTERREG operators/project managers in order to make them more prepared on specific issues for better develop regional cooperation themes and territorial promotion activities
Objectives
• General Objectives: To facilitate exchange of know-how between regional development planners, INTERREG programme managers and INTERREG project developers.; To foster INTERREG project development and to facilitate a wider and more qualified participation in future European Territorial Cooperation Objective; To make the findings available for the European Commission, the INTERACT Secretariat, the INTERACT Points and the INTERREG community in view of improving the effectiveness of INTERREG III and contributing to the new programming of European Territorial Cooperation Objective;
• Specific Objectives: ALSO aims at examining and evaluating a definite number of INTERREG projects and test on them an Evaluation Model in order to produce a Good Practices Manual and a Checklist supplying the key indication for evaluating INTERREG projects results and impact, training regional planners and operators/project managers and  orienting the new generation of INTERREG projects (European Territorial Cooperation) towards the objectives of the Lisbon and Gothenburg Strategy; 
Approach and methodology
• Open Approach, Cooperative, interactive process, Grouping of Regions, Key Transfer and dissemination: all the partners will work strictly together  to bring a scientific and MANAGERIAL view into the INTERREG project system. Following three INTERREG geographical area community (“STRAND A” – North Europe, “STRAND B” – East Europe and “STRAND C” South and West Europe) they will cooperate to bring project experiences ensuring a project CROSS-STRAND analysis on themes impacting on the Lisbon and Gothenburg Strategy Objectives thanks to the ALSO strategic realised tools (Evaluation Model, Good Practices Manual, Check list). The involvement of important regional authorities and RDAs, scientific partners (U.L.B. Université Libre de Bruxelles and E.I.P.A. - European Institute for Public Administration) and two Intergovernmental networks, (Arco Latino and C.E.I.  –Central European Initiative) , will  allow the project to have a qualified base for dissemination and transfer.