The project was aimed at strengthening the communication and cooperation between the Finnish and Russian businesses in a chosen pilot area, the Interreg III A Karelia area, in order to increase the productive and economical cooperation and business volume. For this purpose, it was intended to form an intense network of international rural organizations (authorities, specialists, entrepreneurs), which could improve the expertise of rural organizations in the area and facilitate exchanging experiences between each other and solve problems together. By extending the international cooperation wider than to the pilot area, the intent was to ensure that there would be several operational models and ideas from various sectors available for solving the problems of the rural areas. Achievements: Altogether 45 organisations from Finland and Russia, as planned, were joined to the network during the project. In connection with the project, several joint events were organised; workshops, seminars and partner meetings in Finland and Russia. As a result of the project, the Nortknow.net -website was created, which brings together various project organisations. The pages are a concrete means for the members of the network to come together and continue their activities even in the future. Payment of a registration fee allows the use of the pages. Registering also gives an organisation the possibility to publish its contact information in the partner registry of the pages. Registered users also get email information (Newsletter) on current project fi nancing to their desired email address. The organisations can also advertise their events on the pages and, through the system administrator, set up workshops to discuss a specific topic. The project registry on the pages can include a brief description of completed, ongoing or planned projects. The network members contact details are in the specialist registry, which may facilitate a partner search. The members of the network can publish any number of specialists from their organisation to the registry database. New partnerships around new themes were formed during the project, and the partners project application PROCOOP was chosen to be fi nanced. The ProAgria Kainuu will be responsible for the operations of the network during 2008, finding out about cooperation possibilities, among others, with the neighbourhood region programme IV, which concentrates on the public relations of the MMM.