The study broadens and deepens the analysis carried out in “Regions 2020”. The papers composing this study analyse the regional impacts of five key challenges that regions will face in the future, i.e. globalisation, demographic change, climate change, sustainable and competitive energy as well as social risks. Five thematic workshops were carried out with contributions from the World Bank and the Bertelsmann Foundation. From each of the workshops a background paper emerged and was then synthesised in the Synthesis report. The study contributes to defining two overall scenarios of regional disparities in the perspective of 2020 as well as introducing neighbourhood issues into the discussion on challenges.