In a world of globalisation and high mobility regions have to compete with other regions all over the world in terms of location factors, preconditions for production or attractiveness as a residence. While many of those factors of attractiveness – such as infrastructure or prices - are temporary and exchangeable, attractiveness based on regional culture and cultural identity is more stable and can neither be copied nor exchanged. A region with a high grade of identification with its specific cultural heritage is unique and therefore attractive for residents, visitors and enterprises.CCC aims to identify, valorise and capitalise the regions' cultural resources, particularly the intangible cultural resources (such as traditions, peoples' potentials, skills, capabilities, practical know-how, expertise & knowledge, active social networks), in order to strengthen the regional identity, enhance the quality of life and increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of the participating regions. Therefore, the project will link the cultural heritage to processes of the regional economy - beyond tourism - and build capacities for an innovative capitalisation of cultural resources, fostering entrepreneurship, investments and innovation, thus supporting the development of enterprises and job-opportunities. Achievements: The CENTRAL EUROPE project Cultural Capital Counts (CCC) opens a new perspective for European regions: A methodology to valorise and capitalise the regions' most important and valuable resource – the people with their specific knowledge, skills & social networks, also referred to as the intangible cultural heritage. In a first step, the project discovered an astonishing wealth of intangible heritage in Central Europe. In around 70 interviews in 9 regions in 6 European countries, a breathtaking diversity of cultural heritage was discovered, published in 9 brochures and a common database, which you can find at www.culturalcapitalcounts.eu . All in all, more than 200 cultural expressions could be identified, most of them in the categories “social practices, rituals and festivities” and “traditional craft techniques”. A common issue of all regions is knowledge and skills around home made delicacies. Furthermore, people could catch a glimpse of the huge variety in July 2012 in Vulkanland, where partners presented parts of their intangible heritage at a transnational fair. Results show that the field of intangible heritage is like an unknown continent: wide, largely undiscovered, but full of promising potentials. In combination with the many articles already published on intangible heritage, this is a profound process of awareness raising for the high value of intangible heritage. If you're interested to discover your intangible heritage, consult our “Manual on Identifying Intangible Cultural Resources”, available at CCC partners or on the web. For the valorisation of these intangible resources, CCC developed methods and tools, exploiting the know-how and experience of all partners. The CCC methodology gives advice in five steps, how to capitalise the intangible heritage of a region: Discovering ICH, creating a vision, planning the process, awareness raising and inspiration&networking. For all steps, detailed advice and examples are given in the manual “Transnational Tools to valorise the resource regional culture”, available for download at our website. Now, after testing these tools in 9 European regions, CCC could prove that the methods works in practice! With the help of CCC, entrepreneurs and cultural actors developed new products and services, based on their local intangible heritage – and politicians and stakeholders developed policies to trigger development based on ICH. Thus, CCC could prove that the intangible has the power to make the difference! Finally, this knowledge will now be included in the common strategy for the valorisation of intangible heritage, which will be the final output of CCC. CCC provides a new opportunity for European regions!