There is ongoing political and scientific debate about how to achieve sustainable management of natural resources that will benefit rural communities’ economic development while protecting and enhancing natural assets. Non-governmental multi-stakeholder groups are an important link between policies and on-ground management. There is limited knowledge on the groups’ contribution to sustainable development and only scattered information on how efficiently the activities of these groups can be influenced by means of political programmes such as LEADER. The objective of the project is to identify, analyse and assess the contribution of multi-stakeholder partnerships to the sustainable management of rural landscapes and to the well-being of communities in three European countries. The analysis will classify different types of groups and their specific area of involvement and contribution. The contribution will be assessed from the economic, the social/cultural and the environmental perspective. A crucial point is the definition of the objective(s) that the assessment is made towards. The project aims to consider externally defined objectives (from the regional or national level) as well as internally defined objectives (from within the group or community) and compare the resulting assessments. In addition, the project aims to answer the question which factors determine the resilience and longevity of groups, and whether externally induced groups are as viable as groups that have formed from the bottom up through local stakeholders’ initiative. The project will apply a mix of explorative, qualitative and quantitative methods drawing on institutional analysis, actor network and conflict analysis, as well as communication and behavioural theory. The applicability of the theory of multiple intelligences, as well as the applicability of resilience theory to the social construct of multi-stakeholder groups will be tested.