WP1 is the working package concerning project management. Together with WP 7, it is a management WP, led by SDU, and interacting with the other WPs. Specifically, WP1 includes the administration, and financial, quality and data management of the project. It will also monitor the project’s achievements, impact, deliverables, and milestones, and monitor and enforce the ethical standards and the inclusion of a gender dimension throughout the research process.

WP2, called "Conceptual framework: Borders and heritage as factors shaping perceptions of European societies and politics in the 21st century", is the conceptual and theoretical working package. It develops a coherent conceptual framework for all research activities. WP2 guides interaction between the three working packages which gather data in desk research and field work in border regions. In the final phase of B-SHAPES, WP2 will provide a comparative and synthesized assessment of borders as a key factor shaping perceptions of European societies.

WP3 focuses on Euroscepticism in border regions. It will analyze media reports and public attitudes to trace how narratives about the historical and cultural legacies of borders, as well as their local characteristics, are in turn linked to expressions of Eurosceptic attitudes. Furthermore, through interviews with party officials, the WP will investigate what role narratives on borders play in the local 2024 European election campaigns. WP3 will involve five border regions. Four have a history of violence in the 20th century, with different approaches to reconciliation: Franco-German, German-Polish, Czech- Polish and Hungarian-Slovak border regions. The fifth one, the Danish-Swedish Øresund region, has often been portrayed as a best-practice model of a cross-border metropolis.

WP4, called "Borders shaping minorities’ perceptions of the European project", studies the effect of re-bordering processes, such as border closures during the pandemic, on how people belonging to national minorities perceive borders. By studying how minority media report on borders, and how young members of minorities talk about borders, the WP aims  to assess how these narratives influence their understanding of the European Union. Through the focus on minorities, the WP will highlight often invisible narratives and perceptions while fostering inclusive approaches to the European project. WP4 will involve five border regions with a strong, and often complicated, minority presence, resulting in historical controversies on the location of the border and continuing difficult kin-state relations: the Austro-Italian, Danish-German, German-Polish, Czech- Polish, Hungarian-Slovak, Bulgarian-Turkish and Bulgarian-Greek border regions.

WP5, "Border landscapes as heritage", will investigate the local perceptions of natural and cultural heritage in transboundary contexts and how they relate to institutionalized border heritage. First, the WP will study border heritage with a focus on educational, planning, and touristic material. Secondly, local people’s perceptions will be studied by conducting border landscape walks and collecting the stories of sites that are meaningful to them. The stories will then be geotagged and digitalized by using ArcGIS Story Maps. The findings will be discussed in cross-border workshops with the stakeholders in the selected border areas. WP5 will engage in field work in five case study regions: the Austro-Italian, Danish-German, Swedish-Finnish, Bulgarian-Turkish and Bulgarian-Greek border regions.

WP6 will, based on the empirical findings of WP3-5, provide policy recommendations aiming to bring EU policy-making closer to people in European borderlands.  Policies and policy guidelines will be developed that are sensitive to the potential risks and possibilities offered by the complex cultural heritage, arts, and creative sector patterns in these borderlands due to their special historical and cultural circumstances. Policy scenarios and recommendations will be constructed, tested, and validated in collaboration with policymakers and stakeholders through physical and digital policy seminars. Additionally, a podcast-based MOOC and an inclusive borderland heritage management plan will be developed.

WP7 is B-SHAPES’ communication, dissemination and exploitation working package. It will disseminate B-SHAPES’ findings to the scientific community by advising on scientific publication outlets and assisting peer review and editing processes. Besides scientific breakthroughs, B-SHAPES aims at communicating its results to political stakeholders at European, national and regional level, especially in border regions, and to the broader public. B-SHAPES non-academic partners will play a key role in these activities.