FIN-EN project aims at enhancing co-operation between regional and national authorities across Europe on the methodologies and instruments used for implementing Financial Engineering operations in the framework of EU Structural Funds. Financial Engineering is an option offered to member states to reviewing the ERDF/ESF disbursement procedures by using financial instruments (as opposite to traditional grants) able to provide EU funding even after the 2013 deadline.The aim is to maximise the use of EU funds (by increasing the leverage effect and stimulate private co-investment and involvement), support a greater number of SMEs, speed the disbursement process, reinforcing the principle of subsidiarity and mutual accountability across EU through a direct involvement of beneficiaries in the operations.The project's main goal is to set up a wide and stable network where Managing Authorities from the Objectives areas "Convergence" and "Regional Competitiveness and Employment" would confrontthemselves with respect to each phase of implementation of FE operations, as well as the underlying financial instruments, in order to find concrete solutions to similar problems.FIN-EN proposes an integrated exchange of experiences where partners will present their most effective financial instruments and methodologies, will learn from other partners' experiences and formulate semplification proposals for future implementation, in view of the next SFs' programming period. The activities are divided into three Components strictly inter-related:- Project management and co-ordination: setting up of an internal structure to co-ordinate the partners' activities, inter-face with EU Programmes bodies, support technical and finacial activities and reporting processes.- Exchange of experience: analysis, discussion and share of experiences in the implementation of the most relevant financial engineering instruments in the contest of:1) "Thematic Working Groups", that will discussmain issues, obstacles and challenges in the process of implementation of the financial products, for each phase of the FE operations2) " Study Visits" where staff of different institutions will further co-operate through on-the field visits to learn more about experiences considered of special interest by the partners. The exchange will firstly take place in the context of a large partnership of 13 partners representing 13 different EU regions from Northern (DK, DE, LT, LV), Eastern (HU, SI), Southern (GR, IT, PT, ES) and Western (BE, FR, UK) member States.3. Dissemination and information: once the best instruments and methologies have been shared at the internal level, the network will disseminate the achieved results at the external regional, national and EU level through: web-site, network promotion campaign and material (brochures, press releases, leaflets, flyers, e-newsletters, studies),seminars, conferences involving regional and EU authories in charge of regional policies Achievements: The FIN-EN project gathers together 13 partners representing national and regional public banks, public authorities, development agencies, European associations, most of them being Managing Authorities or Holding Fund Managers of Financial Engineering Instruments (FEI) set up or in the process of being set up under EU Structural Funds.The project's objective is to create a joint platform where to share common experiences, face encountered problems and propose possible solutions concerning all FEI life-cycle phases: programming, implementation and monitoring/reporting.The project activities concretely started in the occasion of first meeting held in Brussels on 26 and 27 March 2012. During the meeting the consortium met and exchanged more in-depth information about project structure (split into components and sub-components, i.e. the Survey mapping, Thematic Working Groups and Study Visits) and role of the partners, expected outputs and results, management aspects (FLC set up and nature of eligible expenses), governance of the project (appointing the members of the Technical Advisory Committee) communication and dissemination tasks. After the end of the meeting, the minutes, the chronoprogramme, the presentations and the formal budget annexes have been circulating among partners. In 1st semester, while LP finalized all administrative steps, signing the Subsidy Contract and the Partnership Agreement, some "coordinating" partners (those partners with a coordination task involved deeply in the first project months) started elaborating with LP their respective contributions for the project: Communication Leader (P2) began to set up a draft version of the communication plan and the visual identity, being supported by an external supplier. A final visual identity, necessary for all further communication tools, has been assessed by partners and finally approved.The Survey Coordinator (P4) realized a first proposal of the Mapping Grid, Best Practices criteria and list of topics for TWGs in collaboration with LP; the proposals were further improved with the feedbacks from all partners all along 1st semester; the mapping grid, the best practices criteria and list of topics will be officially approved by the Technical Advisory Committe during 2nd semester. TWG1 Leader (P5) started preparing for the organization of TWG1 in Auvergne in October 2012 with the coordination of LP.