The Swiss Participation in ETC-Programs Challenged by the New Swiss Funding Regime NRP

European regional policy has increasingly been focused on innovation and knowledge during the last three decades. Yet, its INTERREG funding regime is still supporting a wide range of different cross-border topics, more concentrated on integration efforts than on pure innovation policy. In four of the 52 cross-border programs also Swiss regions are participating. Since 2008, cross-border cooperation in Switzerland is funded in the framework of the "New Regional Policy" (NRP). The underlying philosophy of the NRP is clearly dominated by an orientation on economic growth and strengths. So the NRP shall improve the conditions for entrepreneurial activities and innovation, and shall sustainably enhance the added-value as well as the competitiveness. For those INTERREG programs with Swiss participation and especially for the Swiss program partners the integration of INTERREG into the NRP has implicated completely new funding conditions. In principle the reorientation of regional policy in Switzerland bears a broad range of analogies to the European Structural Funds after their reform in 2005. But despite these parallels also important discrepancies are to be found, which mainly arise out of the specific features of the INTERREG objective and which are further aggravated by its integration into the NRP. INTERREG is still seen as important instrument for integration policy, the NRP is exclusively focused on innovation. Also administrative and formal conditions differ. In conclusion, this paper presents the challenges and potential tendencies of a Swiss participation in (future) cross-border INTERREG-programs. For this purpose it brings together the experiences of the INTERREG-A programs with Swiss participation. A standardized analysis of the problems due to the integration of INTERREG into the NRP in Switzerland is given. These discussions become even more important as the coming funding period of the NRP 2012-2015 does (once again) not correspond with the INTERREG period. Numerous publications and broad research and project (management) experience in the field of regional policy and regional development with a specific focus on European policy as well as on evaluations, regional innovation and technology policy, and regional governance.