The following analysis and interpretation bases on the project partner institutions participating in the thematic fields “inclusive growth” and “resource efficiency and ecosystem management” of the Alpine Space programme period 2007-2013. For the German part of the Alpine Space 30 institutions participated, four of them in two projects of these thematic fields.

Almost one half of Project Partners (PP) are in branches of NACE-code “O” (public authorities). NACE-code “P“ (Universities or Institutes of applied science) are also frequent project partners in the Alpine Space Programme. The public sector is therefore clearly dominating. The private sector is underrepresented as well as institutions representing the civil society. Looking closer at authorities it shows that most of them have their thematic focus on regional development, spatial or regional planning. Only two of them are representing the local, but eight the regional level. Their main resources are decision-making/policy-making. These stakeholders have often high influence on sustainable spatial development. They are a very important target group for the Alpine Space program.
Another type of well represented institutions within the scope of the analysis is “Universities and Institutes of applied sciences” and “Technological and scientific research center” with their main resources knowledge / expertise. Their influence is generally not very high but their area of influence is wider than for participating authorities. Universities and research institutes work generally on all spatial levels, but have often low (direct) influence on sustainable spatial development.

Looking closer at the thematic focus of the institutions, it shows that many (13) of them have their focus at resources and the other main group (8) is in context with spatial planning and regional development. Close to these institutions are the 3 institutions concerned with economic development and tourism. The issue of building and architecture is represented by three institutions, the other institutions are more singular in the scope of this analysis. The thematic focus of institutions corresponds to the two selected thematic fields, the picture would change, if the other thematic fields (Climate change, competitiveness and innovation of SMEs, low carbon energy and energy efficiency, sustainable transport and mobility) would be included into the analysis.

A closer loook at the degree of influence the stakeholders have on the different spatial levels shows, that there are only 5 (out of 30) institutions with a high influence on sustainable spatial development. The highest influence on local and regional level have authorities who are directly involved in or responsible for spatial planning in their area. But in the two thematic fields of the last program period of the Alpine Space program very few of such authorities participated as project partners, although they represent an important target group of the program. If this is representative for all thematic fields and also the other program periods, strategies have to be found to motivate more of them to participate.
The stakeholders with a low degree of influence are mainly universities and research institutions, which contribute to sustainable spatial development by giving their knowledge and expertise on all spatial levels from the local and regional level (mostly by supporting pilot activities) to the national and even international level by exchanging the expertise via networking and activities in their common channels (conferences, scientific journals etc.). They play an important role in the Alpine Space program as Partners (at least in the scope of this analysis), but are maybe compared to local stakeholders somehow overrepresented.
The most important stakeholders – the key stakeholders for sustainable spatial development - are the 5 institutions with high influence at the local and regional spatial level.

National and local stakeholders are poorly represented, while most stakeholders represent the regional level – a level which includes state authorities from Bavaria. Most research institutes and universities as well as the few private enterprises included as partners in the program work at all spatial levels from the local level – often involved as pilot site – to international level, subject to the respective needs.

Among the participating institutions in Germany the public sector, represented mainly by authorities and universities / research institutes, is very good represented, while the private sector is almost not represented as project partner. Presumably some SMEs are participating indirectly as contracting partners of authorities. It is noticeable that most project partners have low or medium influence on sustainable spatial development. One reason is the lack of local authorities as project partners, because they hold many planning competences and have therefore a high influence on spatial development on the local level. Some of them take indirectly part in the program as “pilot regions” without being a project partner. There is no obvious “network of stakeholders” visible in the two thematic fields of the program, there are not many stakeholders participating in more than one project in this period. The fact that only 5 stakeholders are located in the perimeter of the Alpine Convention - and are therefore expected to have a stronger “alpine identity” - is due to the relative small area of the Alps in Germany. There are only medium sized towns with less than 70.000 inhabitants in the german Alpine Convention area and therefore less institutions like e.g. universities or research centers. Local actors are rarely involved as partners in the projects.