Ecosystems and their services go beyond national borders and need a transnational approach for their dynamic protection, sustainable use, management and risk prevention. As a basis for joint action, public authorities, policy makers, NGOs, researchers and economic actors – the AlpES target groups – need a common understanding of ecosystem services, comparable information on their status and support in using appropriate tools for integrating them in their fields of work. The AlpES project’s overall objective is to introduce ecosystem services as a regional/transnational environmental governance framework and train and support the AlpES target groups in understanding, valuing and managing them. More than 20 key stakeholders from the Alpine space will be involved personally in the project development in order to enter in a mutually profitable dialogue and assist them in practically applying the ecosystem services concept. In close collaboration with stakeholders, AlpES will (1) develop an Alpine ecosystem services concept, (2) carry out a mapping and assessment of ecosystem services for the Alpine Space area including the testing in selected study regions across the Alpine Space, (3) provide stakeholders with the results through an interactive web GIS and (4) ensure a multi-level and cross-sectoral transfer of AlpES results to a maximum number of stakeholders via a suite of innovative, tailored and transferable learning tools and targeted activities.