The present White paper offers strategic recommendations for further activities of the SEE-ERA. NET consortium together with other major stakeholders throughout Europe. In a separate paper, the Joint Action Plan, concrete implementation scenarios for these activities are provided. Building on each other’s strengths and common interests and acknowledging recent challenges faced by the integration process, the authors deal on the one hand with the national and transnational framework for S&T cooperation. They also propose concrete joint action through the setting up of a Regional RTD Programme, building on the experience and the monitoring results of SEE-ERA-NET’s successful Pilot Joint Call (PJC) as a first pilot case of a joint regional call for joint research proposals. In order to strengthen the scientific and innovative potential of the Western Balkan countries, to address their strategic economic and social needs and to improve the context of cooperation between the scientific communities all over Europe, a number of specific objectives and implementation scenarios are proposed.