Policy discourse on border regions is nearly always passionate, but rarely well informed.  Mythology and anecdotes dominate, rather than hard data.  Cross-border co-operation itself remains little understood.  While longitudinal data exists on the state of cross-border co-operation in many frontier regions of Europe, it is not easily available to the full range of stakeholders, nor is it presented in an interactive visual format that aids comparative analysis for identifying positive trends or emerging hotspots.  Moreover, most qualitative data from border regions is ad hoc in character, making comparative and time series analysis all but impossible.

This project delivers a regularly updated Cross-Border Co-operation Index targeting regions located on both sides of Europe’s East-West frontiers, which will indicate the level of cross-border co-operation, point to good practices, but also serve as a tool for “early warning” of deteriorating cross-border situations that need attention from the conflict prevention perspective.