Innovation is a crucial driving force for economic growth, relevant to every economic sector. Europe needs to improve its performance in innovation to sustain a high and rising standard of living. The key building stones of the European economic edifice are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), reinforcing their innovation capacity is thus crucial to guarantee competitiveness and sustainable growth. Clusters of SMEs therefore need to cooperate on a larger, transnational level to bring forth new products, services and concepts that are competitive on EU & global level.These considerations brought about the idea of a cluster conference in May 2009, organised by partnership behind ClusterCOOP, where the Visegrad 4(Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) discussed strategies for enhanced cooperation with the participation of policy level representatives, clusters & experts.Creating and enhancing framework conditions for the effective cross-regional and cross-border cooperation of clusters in Central Europe requires joint actions by the policy makers. In many cases, the regulatory level is exactly the area which CE cluster experts see as the major bottleneck for successful cluster cooperation. Partner countries/regions identified similar challenges regarding transnational, inter-cluster cooperation. First of all there are little or no synergies among national/regional cluster policies, and also the current framework does not solicit any kind of cooperation.These problem areas are calling for a joint action in order to solve the problems, not only in the V4 countries but in the whole of Central Europe. Therefore a project was initiated to form transnational partnership to work together in finding solutions and tools to enhance inter-cluster cooperation and through this, strengthen the position of the CE Region in the EEA. Achievements: The idea behind ClusterCOOP is that Central Europe needs to improve its innovation performance in order to boost the competitiveness of the CE region. Clusters provide conditions conducive to innovation, specifically “open innovation” promoting new ideas. Creating and enhancing framework conditions for effective cross-regional and cross-border cooperation of clusters in Central Europe requires joint actions by the policy makers of all levels. Members of ClusterCOOP partnership recognised that creating new synergies among national/regional cluster policies and funding frameworks can help clusters better exploit their innovation capacities and their competitiveness so that in the long term their effective economic cooperation improves the position of the CE region in the European economic area with special regard to the need of overcoming the lasting effects on the real economy of the financial turmoil of the near past and of the present day.The core partnership is composed of national ministries and regional and local authorities, national public agencies and public and private knowledge providers. Complementary to project partners three additional ministries are involved providing strategic support to the project. At start of the project a conference was organised in Budapest in July 2011, touching upon the main issues for ClusterCOOP,such as the challenges of innovation policies and the future role of clusters in Central Europe.The real work has started with analysing the current situation: based on a joint methodology, each partner country has developed a SWOT analysis on innovation and cluster policies,thus trying to get a clear picture of the present and future possibilities.Results were synthetized into a joint synthesis and evaluation report. An overview on innovation and cluster policies beyond the partnership (in Central Europe and EU in general) and a Benchmark report on national and EU funding schemes have also been worked out. Completion of thematic activites is in full swing by now. For setting policy measures and solutions that can support cross-regional and transnational cluster cooperation, a common proposal for policy harmonization addressing policy makers was made including 6 key proposals. A "CE cluster qualification system Pilot Study" to qualify the clusters of the CE area with a simple methodology had been prepared. As emerging industry is spotlighted too, a joint proposal for the promotion of the emerging sectors was worked out including 5 key recommendations. Results achieved have been discussed on ministerial level at the Ministerial Conference on 24 September in Budapest. Knowledge and cooperation support for clusters has been provided through a Virtual Interactive Platform. A network of Cluster Contact Points to provide direct assistance for clusters is established and operated. Networking possibilities for clusters of partners' countries are given by Matchmaking Roadshows.