The project has grown out from the Network of Eastern External Border Regions, from a wide European initiative aiming at the collaboration of regions from 11 European countries on the external borders of the European Union, who decided to work more closely together and to ellaborate joint actions for their common challenges. The partnership of the project includes the regional authorities/bodies in 10 regions from 8 European countries, and intends to involve further interested European and non-European partners to their activities. Core elements of successful SME development and innovation policies in these areas are cross border business cooperation with non European neighbouring countries, and better structures of access to knowledge and access to finance for SMEs in peripheric areas. The good practices and the special opportunities on these common fields should be better exploited and strengthened. That is why the overall objective of NEEBOR project isto exchange and exploit solutions for a more competitive and innovative SME sector while increasing the efficiency of regional SME development and innovation policies in the external border areas. The specific objectives of the project are to develop a clear understanding of the external border regions' key challenges, key strategies, key actors and key actions on SME development and innovation; to exchange good practices which can help to unlock business potential in these regions as cross border business cooperation, access to finance and access to knowledge for SMEs; to exchange and exploit experiences on these areas through successful seminars, study visits, staff exchange and transferability actions; to develop joint methodologies and give policy recommendations on the above mentioned areas; to deepen the relations among the external border regions, and to upgrade their networking capacity. The project has three components:Component 1: management, - Component 2: communication and dissemination, - Component 3: exchange of experiences.The management ensures the smooth implementation of the project without major difficulties. The communication ensures the visibility, and good spread of results within and beyond the partner regions. Component 3 aims at exchanging of experiences and has a sequence of activities building on each other, as the state of the art, identification of good practices, study trips/staff exchange, transferability of project results, furthermore joint methodologies and policy recommendations. The project will carry out 1 analysis-good practice guide, 5 study visits, 4 conferences, 10 staff exchange, 10 transferability, 1 joint methodology and 1 action plan. It is expected to improve SME development and innovation policies in the external border regions and it will improve the cross border cooperation of SMEs, will create better access to finance and access to knowledge for SMEs. Achievements: The overall objective of NEEBOR (Networking for Enterprises in the Eastern External Border Regions) INTERREG IVC project is to exchange and exploit solutions for a more competitive and innovative SME sector while increasing the efficiency of regional development policies on SME and innovation support and better utilising the specific opportunities of the external border areas. This objective is reached in three different stages: identification, joint learning and exploitation. After getting know each other at the Kick-off meeting in Debrecen on the next meeting partners started the thorough preparation of the regional analysis and the template for collecting the good practices. This way project partners were able to present the regional peculiarities and good practices before – as closure of the identification phase – the brochure about the 30 identified good practices was prepared for the Annual NEEBOR Conference. The main issue of the conference this year was economic development, safety and security as this is very important in NEEBOR regions cross-border connections and was organized to assure possibility for all stakeholders and politicians to get information about the project results and objectives. Outcome of the Annual Conference was the Joensuu Declaration, which discussed the above mentioned themes and it was handed over to Director Charlina Vithceva from European Commission during the conference. In the joint learning phase - NEEBOR stepped in Period 3 - since the study visits and the staff exchange programs are targeting the better understanding, the main objective is - inter alia - what the project was made for (see objectives on webpage). Referring to the specific objectives relevant in the first three reporting periods, the development of a clear understanding of the external border regions key challenges, key regional strategies, key actors and key actions on SME development and innovation support has been addressed. As regards to deepen the relations among the eastern external border regions, and to upgrade their horizontal and vertical networking capacity, the project partners benefited from the operation of management structures. For the dissemination of the obtained results and the involvement of further European and non-European partners into the project activities the partners elaborated on the communication and dissemination plan, used the project layout elements and website, and continued to disseminate information about NEEBOR on non-project events and other seminars. The specific objective of identifying good practices was also fulfilled, by collecting 30 good practices at project level. The experience exchange started through the study visits at Lapland, North-Karelia, Vidzeme, Presov and Észak-Alföld. All important actions needed for project implementation were done duly on time. Partners managed to establish channels of good cooperation which is base of successful implementation of project activities. Partners are on to solve the problematic issues with Warmia and Mazury partner (responsible for Communication and dissemination) in connection with the tasks and the nomination of the Communication Officer as Rovaniemi University partner is willing to take over the relevant tasks. Partners were ready to communicate the project, took part on many other events and also organised some, so was on to take the advantage of any form of communication and dissemination. To summarise the activities of the NEEBOR project it can be stated that all the responsibilities and tasks were implemented. If you need more information visit http://www.neebor.eu