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The paper presents three cases from a pilot study of the EU funded A-RING project on the impact of transborder collaboration in innovation and research in the Alpine Region and develops prescriptions to foster interregional partnership in the framework of the Smart Specialization Strategy. The analysis shows two results: 1) smaller and diverse territories enact a more open and discontinuous strategy; 2) larger territories with higher diversity are less open to newcomers, more rigid with regard to fund allocation, topics of interest, and less responsive to stakeholders. In the conclusion, we provide a policy proposition for interregional and cross-border collaboration.