The URMA-project promotes urban-rural partnerships as a tool to strengthen the potential for generation and transfer of innovation in European metropolitan areas and their surrounding hinterlands. The basis was laid during a preceding project, integrated in the action programme Pilot Project of Spatial Planning sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development. In this project regional disparities were tackled and the effectiveness of regional development policies was improved by new governance structures for large scale urban-rural partnerships (triple helix approach). Balancing regional disparities and being competitive at the same time are challenges for all regions in Europe and therefore the project theme is of high interest to many other metropolitan areas.The projects objective is therefore to utilize the urban-rural cooperation schemes developed and tested in the above-named project and in other partner regions in the field of innovationgeneration and transfer within metropolitan areas and regional urban-rural networks. The PP will identify different types of regional innovation systems, exchange experiences on urban-rural cooperation and finally help to improve the effectiveness of regional and local policies in the field of innovation. This objective enables an establishment of a regional, national and European policy agenda for a sustainable development of metropolitan areas. Moreover, it will result in lasting and balanced positive effects on the competiveness of metropolitan areas, also in global terms. The key advantage to this approach is that urban and rural areas will benefit on equal terms and that cities will not gain competitiveness on the expense of urban areas and vice-versa.The participating nine PP from five EU member states (BG,DE,IT,NL,PL) cover a wide EU area and are directly involved in the improvement of regional policies. The consortium is homogenous and diverse at the same time, comprisingdifferently shaped urban-rural regions, from strong interconnected metropolitan areas to smaller city regions. The mix of larger and smaller, well experienced and less experienced PP will open up new possibilities of learning and knowledge transfer and creates an added value for all regions. URMA is mainly focused on the exchange of experiences through an array of conferences, public and project internal workshops, study visits in all regions and 3 pilot implementations. The cooperation will be supported by a common toolkit to identify and describe best practices, a concise dictionary and a Good Practice Guide. Furthermore recommendations for the whole project partnership with regard to regional innovation systems and for the future European cohesion policy regarding urban-rural partnerships will be developed. All in all, the project will raise the awareness for the need and potential of urban-rural partnerships – a new approach to strengthen innovation in European metropolitan areas. Achievements: On 28 March 2012 the URMA project was officially started in Hamburg. Around 30 participants gathered for the public launch event in the HafenCity Hamburg. Following a general presentation about the INTERREG IVC project URMA (Prof. Dr. Jörg Knieling), a brief introduction in the METREX expert group Urban-rural relationships in metropolitan areas of influence (Dr. Rolf-Barnim Foth) and a presentation about the fellow INTERREG IVC project UNICREDS – University Collaboration in Regional Development Spaces (Stelian Dimitrov), the participants had the opportunity to actively exchange experiences in the field of urban-rural partnership approaches. The event closed with a project internal meeting on 29 March 2012. Topics of the SC Meeting: overall project management issues (e.g. reporting, deadlines, discussion of Partnership Agreement draft), discussions about responsibilities and activities. Within the European Conference: Urban. Rural. Europe, Strengthening partnerships taking place on 19 June 2012 in Berlin and organized by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development, the participants discussed the issue of urban-rural partnerships in depth. During the one-day event several presentations were given including a presentation by Rolf Oldejans, Region Twente (Project partner of the URMA project) focusing on partnership cooperation in a region with rural character. The following panel discussion included a debate on prospects from urban-rural partnerships in Europe. All in all the event attracted more than 100 participants from national and international representatives from stakeholders affected by this topic – including six project partners of the URMA project. Further information as well as the presentations can be found here: http://www.stadt-land-europa.de/. All partners started to inform related projects and contacts about the approval of URMA. The project participated in the LP seminar in Copenhagen, the seminar on online reporting and exchange of experiences in Barcelona as well as in the Communication seminar in Sofia. Call for tender for public relation issues has been initiated by the LP and prepatory works with regard to flyer, roll-up and newsletter started. The Westpomeranian Voivodship started the preparations for the 1st Public Seminar and Study Visit taking place in September in Szczecin.