Europe faces a moment of global transformation and must now take charge of its future. In the meantime, the world is moving fast and long-term challenges – globalisation, pressure on resources, ageing – intensify. Europe can succeed if it acts collectively, as a Union. Regions need a strategy to come out stronger from the crisis, overcome structural weaknesses and contribute to turn the EU into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy in accordance with the EU guidelines (e.g. Europe 2020 Strategy) to build a knowledge-based, low carbon economy with high employment levels. This calls for a deep analysis of regional capacities leading to the joint identification of the set of priorities on which stakeholders, regional innovation policies and investments should be focused on in order to better position themselves in the knowledge economy.TRES is born with the aim to mobilise the innovation capacity and potential of regions towards smart growth. Being a policy intelligence knot forknowledge exchange and wide cooperation. TRES also intends to boost smart policy processes in order to prepare regions to better face opportunities and challenges and become globally competitive by suggesting new promising recipes. TRES is built on a strong multidisciplinary partnership representing different realities and innovation ecosystems. TRES brings ten project partners and nine regions, a well geographically balanced partnership forming a knot for knowledge generation, strong regional and inter-regional cooperation and transfer.TRES proposes an innovative Methodology assimilated to a cooking process to achieve these objectives and results. In cooking processes tradition is mixed with specialisation, innovation and creativity, being above all spaces for learning, creation and transformation as regions are. TRES suggests three inter-related Components to structure the work: C1 enables sound management and coordination from a strategic, financial andadministrative point of view. C2 enhances and ensures successful involvement of key stakeholders, supports the durability and diffusion of results by means of a web 2.0.-based dissemination and networking strategy, making TRES opinion leader. C3 defines a common framework for Good Practices identification, analysis and exchange that leads to individual Implementation Plans. C3 combines a traditional regional analysis, with a more innovative approach that pursues consortium-based and user-led decision making; it also cooks & tastes new promising recipes and actions for smart innovation and growth by looking at new approaches to increase the impact of innovation across clusters, namely stimulating cluster innovation, opportunity-driven innovation and finding out new methods to pilot these approaches. Recommendations for future action on common policy concerns will be provided making complementary competencies met in new types of collaboration. Achievements: Europe goes through a period of transformation as globalisation, pressure on resources, negative demographic changes all pose a challenge to the development of EU regions. This calls for a deep analysis of regional capacities and prioritisation in planning and implementing regional innovation policies. TRES-Towards Regional specialisation for Smart growth spirit, aims to mobilise the innovation capacity of regions towards smart specialization strategies. The overall objective of TRES is to provide a platform and mechanisms for collection, exchange and transfer of experiences and views among regions in Europe in order to offer a source of ideas and good practices for other regions implementing, or thinking about implementing smart specialization.TRES partners form a strong multidimensional partnership representing different innovation realities and ecosystems and believe that sharing expertise and know-how in smart specialization strategies increases the benefits for all10 partners from 9 regions focus on exchanging good practices and know-how in their smart specialization strategies. TRES proposes a methodology similar to a cooking process. In cooking processes tradition is mixed with specialisation, innovation and creativity, being above all spaces for learning, creation and transformation, as regions are. The first face to face steering group meeting took place on 26th-27th of March 2012 in Bilbao, Spain. The aim of this meeting was to launch the project and to put in common interests and objectives of the partners within the project. Partners presented their organizations and their regional smart specialization strategies. This event to celebrate the 1st consortium cooking session: The Basque specialization experience. Speakers presentations gave the participants the opportunity to know about the Basque specialization experience, different actors involved in the process, the way walked.2 study visits took place in this event. The next Interregional workshop will take place next September (13-14) in Valga County, Estonia.One of the main objectives of TRES is to exchange of experiences dedicated to identification and analysis of good practices, inspired by new tendencies such as open innovation and user-driven innovation, partner regions are during the project lifetime revisiting their strategies and strengthening their position for the next round of policies. For that purpose P4, Component 3 leader has refined the methodology for exchange and following communications and feedback form partners developed the overall 5-Step process. During this period first steps have been kick off. Step1: Identification and analysis of Specialization Stories. This survey focuses to get acquainted with the economic situation, policy making processes, innovation system and key sectors of each region to overview the specialization cases. This analysis will be the base of the GP transfer process. The results will be summed up in one Specialisation Story that identifies at least 2 GPs in every region by the end of 2012. Beside statistical data this exercise gives the opportunity to make interviews with relevant experts and to involve them into the evaluation process. In parallel, P10 designed the template and fact for the submission of the good practices for the TRES project. Synergies with other topic related interreg projects have been established in the project. With the aim of doing a peer review of the Basque innovation system, on 28th May a Slovakian delegation from KNOWHUB project (Interreg IVC) visited the Basque Country and TRES project Lead Partner. Component 2 leader has been working the design and project image. An outline of the TRES cooking tool-box together with the template to collect info about key stakeholders, media, networks and experts in the field, has been developed together with the project web 2.0 strategy .Reponsibles for C2-3 are leading the tasks and the other partners are greatly contributing to TRES.