The South-East Baltic Sea Region, the so-called "South Baltic Arc", is characterised by medium-sized cities lying in the "development shadow" of large growth centres such as Berlin, Warsaw, Vilnius and Riga. The regions' urban centres, therefore, do not profit adequately from this prosperous development, but are constantly loosing functions and population.  

Hence they presently do not give impulses to the South Baltic Arc, which is suffering from  

• post-socialist transformation problems,
• negative migration processes,
• limited financial and human capacities and
• weak transport systems.

The project aims at enabling medium-sized cities to become motors for regional development in the South Baltic Arc. SEBco concentrates on issues that  

• are in the competence of local and regional authorities,
• require a joint approach by medium-sized cities with their surrounding region, and
• have a "leverage effect" for the regions' development.

The project activities will  

• establish new city-suburban alliances,
• initiate innovative land-use planning for large-scale industrial areas,
• improve the accessibility of medium-sized cities by revitalising secondary railway lines,
• enable the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to establish transnational chains of production and
• facilitate the exchange of knowledge, experiences and views within and beyond the project partners.

To achieve the objectives of SEBco, an inter-institutional and international approach is used:  

• The core partners, regional administrations, regional development agencies, business associations and universities possess expertise in all aspects of regional development. Additional competence can be found in-house or in closely related organisational units. Thus, SEBco can generate results, which exceed expectations from traditional monosectoral approaches.
• All regions in the South Baltic Arc have to deal with similar development problems. SEBco provides an arena for experts and stakeholders to exchange existing experiences and to discuss new approaches within the South Baltic Arc and beyond. Furthermore, it links small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). On this basis, innovative planning tools and model solutions will be developed. They will represent the international state-of-the-art and can be transferred and adjusted to conditions in other regions.