Declining birth rates and progressive ageing of the population can be observed in all advanced European countries and forecasts predict the continuation of this trend. Ageing is therefore becoming an increasingly important challenge to the competitiveness of the European economy. An interlinked challenge faced by central European cities and regions is the increasing financial burden caused by ageing and other demographic and social trends combined with shrinking public spending, making it difficult for local and regional authorities to respond to the changing needs of society. Tackling these dual challenges in an integrated way could strongly contribute to the economic competitiveness of central Europe.Senior Capital aims to tackle these challenges and to establish a stronger economic and social role of senior citizens both by supporting their knowledge development and by channeling their knowledge and experience towards younger generations. Achievements: Senior Capital wishes to contribute to the economic competitiveness of Central Europe through developing knowledge and enlarging quality work force with a focus on seniors. The project focuses on local actions to promote new senior specific education and employment schemes to extend qualified workforce base in specific fields needing additional human resources with a view on safeguarding employment opportunities of younger people. The project implementation started in Sept. 2012 with the setting up of well-functioning and precisely defined management structures. An internal kick-off meeting was organized by the Lead Partner on 7-8 October in Budapest to discuss smooth project start and thematic frames. Following the creation of a set of transnational communication tools, in order to introduce the projects aims and partnership to selected stakeholders a launching conference was organized in Berlin on 29 Jan. 2013. To analyse existing models of senior involvement into education programmes and employment, a joint methodology for 7 market and needs analyses had been developed. In parallel, an EU Benchmark study on successfully implemented senior education programmes and employment solutions had started to develop (http://goo.gl/QiRBrFf). Mapping out legal, institutional & financial barriers of seniors' involvement into education and employment had also started with the creation of a joint Guidelines. The mapping phase was completed with a European outlook on EU trends, existing good practices and models (http://goo.gl/26eOU7). Activities from March 2013 focused on completing the phase of analysis, drawing up local recommendations as well as on preparing the impementation of pilot actions. The elaboration of partners' market & needs analysis based on targetted interviews (enterprises, employers, training providers/demography experts) had finished. Partner level documents were completedby transnational papers including a summary of analyses (http://goo.gl/WtpHhK), an EU benchmark study as a European outlook on initiatives dealing with 50+ topic, a collection of good practices on education and employment models as well as a transnational collection of successful cases on employment solutions for seniors by businesses (http://goo.gl/DAPdO4). Key findings were jointly discussed at a workshop on successful business cases. To prepare pilot actions aiming at testing tools and adapting them to the local needs a joint pilot methodology had been developed. Accordingly, partner level pilot plans were produced. Thematic progress was supported by the engagement of local stakeholders through organizing consultations where local recommendations, draft roadmaps on improving the legal, administrative and financial environment were discussed. As a key message, the slogan of "Age is not a criterion" was stated providing a basic frame of the project's videoclip to be produced.