BACKGROUND- In a context of global climatic, energetic and economic crisis, renewable energy is an urgent priority. Among renewable energies, bio-energy generated from different types of “biomass” has a big potential. In 2005, the EU approved its Biomass Action Plan (BAP) and invited the Member States to adopt national BAPs. OBJECTIVES- The BIO-EN-AREA project is a mini-programme aimed at exchanging and transferring experiences in order to increase the capacities of EU regions to favour and optimize the use of bio-energy. The whole project's activities are dedicated to this objective, focusing on the elaboration of Regional BAPs. PARTNERSHIP- The partnership is a mix of more and less experienced partners in bio-energy, from South, Central and North Europe, involving The Regional Entity of the Energy of Castilla y Léon (Spain), Lead partner, and The Region of Western Macedonia (Greece) in South Europe, The Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) and The Self-governing Region of Kosice (Slovakia) in Central Europe, The South-East Regional Authority of Ireland, The Regional Energy Agency of South-East Sweden and The Tartu Regional Energy Agency in South Estonia, in North Europe. ACTIVITIES- In component 3, partners share experiences on policy issues at regional level. Key-events will be 3 thematic seminars on the development of bio-energy from 1) forest & wood biomass, 2) energy crops, agricultural by-products & livestock wastes biomass, 3) urban waste biomass. In component 4, participants in sub-projects share experiences on good practices for bio-energy development at local level, transfer methodologies relating to promising practices, develop new approaches for bio-energy planning at territorial level. Communication is a major activity, with the EU regions and bio-energy stakeholders as main target, and the project’s website, a semi-annual newsletter and open seminars and conferences as main communication tools. OUTPUTS- The main synthetic outputs will be 5 draft Regional BAPs elaborated by PAT Trento, SRG Kosice, Western Macedonia, SE Sweden and South Estonia, and 2 BAP Implementation guidelines by SERA Ireland, and EREN Castilla y Léon. A good practices database will be accessible on-line. The final publication will show the results of the exchange and transfer of experience among partners on public policy issues at regional level, and among participants in sub-projects. Achievements: The BIO-EN-AREA project is a mini-programme aimed at exchanging and transferring experiences in order to increase the capacities of EU regions to favour and optimize the use of bioenergy. The project’s activities are dedicated to this objective, focusing on the elaboration of regional Bioenergy Action Plans. Following one Call for proposals and selection in 2010, the Steering Committee signed 7 agreements for the implementation of sub-projects which started activities in January 2011. The Kick off meetings took place in Burgos (Spain) in February 2011 and at the same occasion the Launching Conference was organised by BIO-EN-AREA partnership. 32 European organisations participated and took the opportunity to get to know bioenergy related examples in the Spanish region. The Final Conference of Subprojects took place in Rovereto (Italy) in June 2012. Participants in sub-projects shared their results and several bioenergy related good practices contributed to the experience exchange.The Technical Seminar in Ireland (April 2011 )and the 3 Thematic Seminars on forest biomass and Energy Crops, Agriculture by-products and Livestock Biomass and Urban Biomass which took place in Estonia (June 2011), Ireland (November 2011) and Sweden (March 2012) are helping to improve policies situation in the different regions participating in the project. At the moment 28 bioenergy related good practices have been identified by the partnership. Added to the good practices identified by partners, the Technical Seminar on BAP and the Thematic Seminars have helped the partners to improve the regional policies for biomass.This improvement will continue and will be reflected on the BAP drafting and implementation guidelines. Less advanced partners are learning from the experience of Castilla y León (Spain) and South-East region (Ireland) who have elaborated their own regional action plans.All the partners have started to write the BAP drafts in the regions of Western Macedonia (Greece), Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy), South East Sweden and Tartu (Estonia). Castilla y León is finishing the Implementation guidelines and South-East Ireland will finish the review of their Action Plan next semester. Different documents on the state of the art were elaborated to establish the starting point in each region before the elaboration of the material to improve the existing policies in bioenergy. As a result of the Technical Meeting, 3 working documents were defined: methodology for preparation of regional BAP; tasks proposal to elaborate BAP and time plan. The methodology is being shared through the project's website and the different dissemination events organised by the partners or those in which they have participated.Communication activities such as press releases about the main events of the project and sub projects, the participation in fairs and seminars. Website is being updated with a sub-projects specific place where the main outputs are being published.Last publications include the sub-projects results brochure in English presented during the sub-projects Final Conference in June 2012. The 5th newsletter has been edited and published on the website and distributed. Publication of sub-projects brochure translated in different languages and publication of the leaflets for Thematic Seminars. Synthesis documents on regional bioenergy were elaborated for the Launching conference and communications on regional bioenergy presented at the Launching Conference; communications to the Thematic Seminars on Forest Biomass, Energy Crops, Agriculture by-products and Livestock Biomass and urban biomass. For each thematic seminar there is a synthesis document. These are also available at the project’s website. 25 staff members have increased capacity as a result from the exchange of experience at interregional events and the project's activities.Partnership