AUTOMOTIVE REGIONS aims to help different regional decision-makers work together to design policy when anticipating or facing the closure or downsizing of a car plant. This involves formulating measures to ease the social and economic effects of such an event and the development of approaches to strengthen the competitive position of the existing automotive industry. In the long term, regions should strive for diversification of the regional economy and learn from one another. Achievements: Achievements so far The Network of Automotive Regions has now been running well for 2,5 years and has come to an end. Project activities have contributed to achieving the objective of capitalising on know-how and good practices developed by the partner regions concerning private and public sector policies as well as initiatives related to attracting, retaining, extending, diversifying and promoting the automotive industry and supply chain clusters. All patner regions now have sustainable networks of clusters, key policy-makers and stakeholders and these are involved in studying the replicability of the identified good practices and in some instanced have started the implementation. In total 67 network events (49 events (seminars, working group meetings and large conferences), 16 studyvisits and 2 Steering Committee meetings) were organised with all or part of the project partners in the partner regions. Each workgroup produced 2 ‚Thematic Papers‘ based on shared experiences around the working group’s themes: supply chain, product innovation, process innovation, intelligence on policy and diversification, and labour market issues and training.The first large conference was organised in May 2006 in Genk (B) around ‚Future perspectives for the automotive industry in Western Europe‘. The second large conference was held in December 2006 in Montbeliard (F) in the framework of the annual event ‚Mobilis‘.The 3rd and final large conference was organised in November 2007 in Turin (I).The studyvisits and seminars have highlighted examples of good private and public sector practices and policies throughout the network, eg. Dedicated competence and innovation centres in Stuttgart Region (D), promotion and internationalisation of (car)design in Turin (I), supplier parks and dedicated logistics infrastructure in Flanders (B), strong regional cluster and technology centre in Galicia (E), a new competitivity pole as well as diversification into ICT in Montbeliard (F).Expert consultants produced a benchmark report and SWOT analyses for all the partner regions.The conclusions have been translated into concrete regional (policy) initiatives.The network has selected opportunities for practical cooperation between companies and support organisations from the partner regions in topics including virtual reality and cooperative enigineering, bio fuel, design, cluster management, ... The network has produced a Position paper and joined forces with similar networks in the field of regional policies for supporting the automotive industry and cluster management. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between these projects and this has led to the founding of the European Automotive Strategy Network.