The Defris project focuses on the following tendencies:The Globalization process strengthens the metropolitan regions.First Division Regions (middle-sized) within the area of influence of a metropolitan region are able to take advantage of this and at the same time develop their own identity.First Division regions outside of the area of influence can develop city networks to strengthen their competitiveness.The aim of the Defris project is to formulate development strategies for First Division Regions. The framework of the project was outlined in a Seed Money project. A fundamental idea in the project was to find much more offensive strategies and planning methods to strengthen regions that do not have the market power of metropolitan regions.In the Defris project there have been 5 partners from 4 different countries in the Baltic Sea Region: Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, and Poland, all public entities working with regional development.To create a common platform and a mutual understanding, each partner presented socio-economic as well as organisational and legal preconditions (WP1 and WP2). Next step (WP3) was to realize regionally adequate development projects and activities, in total 20 projects. During this phase the interaction between the partners were very intensive. Together with the common platform this made the choice of activities by each partner most understandable by the others. A matrix where the relations between activities were mapped enabled interchanges of experiences. In each participating region the work has been cross-sector organised. The last phase, WP4, has been focused on dissemination actions and dissemination plans although there has been dissemination activities connected to each WP during the entire project period. Achievements: The project has delivered knowledge and suggestions to be used by regional (not project partners) and local partners in the spatial planning and other regional development initiatives. Regional partners have shown interest both in the results and theoretical background of Defris project as well as in the practical implementation of the development activities already during the project. Based on the project results, it is obvious that the concept of ‘development zone’ and the related theoretical framework offer a viable tool for regional development. The birth of discussion culture between parties and the understanding of the potential of networking around common goals in different regions showed to be a useful tool in developing the competitiveness and attractiveness of the areas.The concrete outputs are a number of reports in each participating region. These reports do also give an insight into what is considered to be keen development projects for middle-sized regions around the Baltic Sea. The reports may give better knowledge of some topic or may be suggestions how to develop the region in one way or another. There are also common reports giving the overview of the project activities in each Work Package. Among these is a matrix showing the interconnection between all activities by all the partners.