RCEs are groups of organizations which deliver Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to a local community, and the regions they represent are comparable to parts of countries, like Bretagne, Tohoku or Catalonia. They are aimed at developing innovative ways of collaborating among institutes of higher education, primary and secondary educational systems, local governments, and other regional stakeholders. They also seek to assist in the vertical alignment of curriculum from primary through university education, linking formal and non-formal sectors of the education community.
Regional centres of expertise are thought of as institutional spaces that are designed in order to strengthen the collaboration between educational, research institutions and other regional actors. It could take a form of a network or a centre, etc. While potentially varying in size and affiliations as well as dealing with different areas constituting the subjects of EfSD, regional centres of expertise should be able to satisfy the key requirements of addressing four major gaps:
1. between the challenges facing region and science and education;
2. between the science, in a broadest sense of a word, and education;
3. between formal and non-formal education;
4. between different levels of education, ie. primary, secondary, and higher education.