We are a political member organisation stretching from Hamburg to Oslo, with eight regions and five cities as members. Our vision is to create a megaregion because there is strength in numbers. Simply put, we are stronger together.

To achieve this, we strive to be a globally acknowledged “Green Investment Hub” and a leading implementer of sustainable infrastructure to combat climate change while improving the lives of our citizens. 

Increasingly, the most productive way to look at modern urban life is to focus on much larger units of territory, comprising of vast stretches of land and water with collective populations – so called megaregions.

Our member cities and regions know this. As individuals, they are considered relatively small on a global scale. However, combined and connected to each other through the STRING region and the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link, they reach a geographical area that encompasses approximately 12.6 million people.

Working as one megaregion instead of individual entities means that we can mitigate some of the drawbacks that traditionally come with large cities, such as traffic congestion, air pollution, soaring house prices and social inequalities.  Simply put, we are stronger together. This can however only be achieved by improving transport connectivity, which in turn will increase the labour force for the member cities and strengthen each member’s economic and social connections to wider geographical areas. On the global stage “megaregions” offer members increased international visibility and bolsters their position for investment and new business opportunities.

As a region that is continuously growing in terms of populations and employment, the STRING region has a strong potential to develop into a megaregion. We however need a clear vision of what to collectively achieve as a megaregion.

With an emphasis on innovative cross-border working combined with pioneering green technological solutions, we aim to brand our megaregion as a “Green Investment Hub”. Creating an environment for investors who wish to promote and produce green hardware.

Fueled by an increased global demand for environment technologies, the market for green investment will only continue to grow. Together with our members, STRING endeavors to become the frontrunner in green technological solutions that a nation state cannot achieve on its own. We want to create a sort of European green Silicon Valley – fostering an environment where investors bring their means and talented people come to work, and develop green technologies to address the modern urban challenges of today.

STRING was formed in 1999 to stimulate cooperation between Denmark and Germany by establishing a new fixed link. In 2008, the two countries signed a State Treaty, agreeing to the development of the Fehmarn Belt fixed link.

In light of this, the cooperation between the STRING members changed towards promoting regional development, along with further infrastructure projects and green growth in the region, stretching from Scandinavia to Hamburg.

In the last two years, we have seen five new members join our organisation.

Today, we stretch from Hamburg to Oslo, consisting of 13 members across eight regions and five major cities in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

STRING has five levels of organisational structure:

1. The Political Forum is the most senior level of decision-making in STRING. They meet three times a year to propose the priority areas and political agenda for the oranisation.
2. The Steering Group consists of high-level representatives from the member regions. Together with the Secretariat, they meet up to four times a year to decide the operational approach STRING will take with its priority areas.
3. The Contact Group is the daily point of contact for members. The group is staffed by civil servants appointed as STRING representatives. They are appointed by the member regions and have responsibility for preparing agenda items for the Steering Group and keep the day-to-day contact with the Secretariat on administrational issues.
4. The STRING Secretariat comprises of seven staff members overseen by a Managing Director. They are the permanent body within the organisation responsible for the implementation of the priority areas, and lobbies at all levels of government to promote the benefits of our work. They also bring together the public, private and academic sectors to feed into our work and share their knowledge. Contact the STRING Secretariat here. 
5. Working Groups have been establised by STRING. They research, develop and promote new cross-border infrastructure and green growth ideas for the regions.