The Regional Council's policies cover a wide range of fields. However, the Region's main responsibilities primarily concern:

• High schools and apprenticeship. The Rhône-Alpes Region funds the construction and maintenance of high schools across its territory, looks after their operating budgets and purchases educational materials such as IT and audiovisual tools.
  
  
• Vocational training. Universal access to lasting employment is the Regional Council's number one objective. It funds further training courses for young people and adults, provides Rhône-Alpes citizens with support and assistance in their career and job changes and is developing the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL).
  
  
• Regional public transport systems. The trains, buses and coaches that are so familiar to thousands of Rhône-Alpes inhabitants are funded by the Region, which also develops the region's railway stations, offers affordable fares to everyone and is increasing the frequency of services.
  
  
• Economic development and employment. The aim of Rhône-Alpes is to make full use of every possible source of employment. For example, it supports business start-ups and redevelopments, the development of SMEs, and business units (clusters) focusing on core businesses of strategic importance to the regional economy (environment, food industry, etc.).
  
  
• Spatial planning. The Region has acquired a comprehensive range of tools to help it work towards a balanced spatial development approach meeting its social improvement, economic efficiency and environmental protection objectives - in other words, a sustainable development approach.
  
  In 2004, a new phase of decentralisation (whereby the Government devolves responsibility to the Regions in certain fields) began. The Regional Council took over responsibility for high school technical and service staff, healthcare and social work training courses (nurses, social workers, etc.) and for the cultural heritage inventory department.
  The Regional Council is currently developing action in other fields, such as international aid, health, sport and renewable energies.