OPEN-ALPS strengthens the competitiveness of the Alpine Space by introducing and realising innovations in SMEs based on the Open Innovation (OI) paradigm. Main objective is to support Alpine SMEs in technology branches on their way from internal closed innovation to "open innovation". This shall encourage innovation, entrepreneurship and strengthen research and innovation capacities for SMEs in the participating Alpine regions. New transnational OI support services of OI Hubs, a web-based OI management platform with 500 innovation seekers from 300 SMEs and 5.000 innovation solvers from 500 R&TD institutions, and special transnational OI innovation forums and OI labs are planned. The experiences shall be used to improve regional innovation policies and shall be disseminated in the EU27 in order to make a valuable contribution to the innovation policy in Europe especially the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union. Achievements: An infrastructure for effective day-to-day internal project management, coordination, communication and knowledge management was established. A preliminary questionnaire for research on Open Innovation activities of small and medium-sized enterprises in Alpine regions was set up and disseminated as pilot activity to 10 enterprises per participating region. Information on existing regional Open Innovation services was gathered. The information will be compiled and used for the completion of several expected outputs of work package 4 ("Analysis of Open Innovation Processes"), such as a state-of-the-art report about Open Innovation processes of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Alpine Region. A project logo was selected out of several externally developed versions. Ideas on the project's corporate identity were collected.http://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/running-projects/?tx_txrunningprojects_pi1[uid]=37&tx_txrunningprojects_pi1[view]=singleView