Cross-border cooperation is growing mostly thanks to incentives in the form of funding under the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and its Interreg programme also called European Territorial Cooperation (ETC). This funding and support under EU cohesion policy, aims at reducing the economic, social and territorial disparities between the EU regions rather than between EU countries. The deepening of European integration on the ground may however be facing obstacles inherent to each country’s specificities Examples include form of government, socioeconomic conditions, political and legal framework. This paper is about cooperation in education in one of the established European cross-border regions called Greater Region (GR), which is an area stretching from Luxembourg, France (Grand Est Region), Belgium (Wallonia region, French community  and German-speaking community of Belgium) and Germany (Rhine-Palatinate and Saarland). The interregional cooperation in education in the GR is framed under Interreg VA and takes shape through cross-border projects and educational networks. These projects are jointly defined by partners from across the Greater region, to achieve the European educational objectives Horizon 2020. This paper will study a cross-border project and its networks in education and within the GR. The research will be conceptualised in multilevel governance (MLG). MLG supposes different levels of interaction, cooperation and networking between different levels of supranational, national and subnational authorities as well as public and private entities in decision-making process. A case study of the cross-border project Sesam’GR, monitored by Interreg VA GR, was chosen. The case study uses interviews as a research method to uncover the inherent obstacles and proposed solutions in such a European border region setting. The study is important in the general scheme of the EU overall integration project and for any existing and future educational projects and networks in particular. The GR lies at the geographic heart of the EU which includes four of its founding member countries. Sesam’GR project is by far the largest educational project in terms of finance and scale within Interreg. By the time the project has reached its end, there are positive indications that will set in motions other projects and will trigger an expansion and multiplication of networks despite the intrinsic challenges grounded in multi-level governance.

Combating climate change has become the key objective of the 21st century. Energy transition, with the intensive introduction of the renewable energy sources to the world’s energy systems, is one of the biggest driving forces in stimulating global sustainable development. Growing shares of renewables, including wind power as a major player (35% of the world’s electricity needs by 2050 raised the issues of grid stability and supply/demand balancing (IRENA, 2019). A popular view on solutions for these issues lies with global energy interconnections, which could support grid stability and let the countries trade green electricity between themselves, creating big regional or even global electricity markets. These interconnections would call for close cooperation between the states, not only in the sphere of transmission, but in generation as well. The cross-border character of such projects would bring new aspects and nuances to the wind power developer’s work, making it more complex and politically sensitive. The potential planning process of such wind power projects has not been investigated before. Therefore, in order to fill this research gap, a cross-border wind power environment analysis framework was developed on the basis of the reviewed literature to assist a wind power developer in a potential planning process of a complex cross-border wind energy project in a sensitive setting. The developed framework was then used to evaluate an empirical case of an assumed offshore wind park on the Southern Kuril Islands, a disputed territory between Japan and Russia. The results showed that introduction of the cross-border factor makes permitting and coordination of projects more challenging and confusing. In addition to that, the wind power developer might have to contribute to the development of improved wind power regulations and norms. Moreover, coordination of such projects would not involve only the developer, but most likely representatives of the involved countries and regions, and possibly mediating organisations; the developers’ work would take place in a multicultural environment with people of various traditions, values, economic backgrounds and interests, which would complicate balancing the stakeholders’ interests during the planning phase.