In profile: Counting thematic allocations to cohesion policy projects
1. How many projects are supported by the EU's cohesion policy?
In the context of the EU's cohesion policy – funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, and the European Social Fund – hundreds of thousand projects are funded in each 7-year financing period. In this article we look at how we count thematic allocations reported to projects (operations) based on the detailed Intervention field data and we provide interactive charts to explore the data and themes.
We also look at some other methods to count projects, operations, and beneficiaries.
2. Counting ERDF/CF allocations by detailed theme
The number of detailed thematic allocations to projects/operations are reported once a year on 31 January to the Commission. The focus of the charts below is on counting the number of specific thematic allocations.
As projects sometimes involve multiple thematic allocations, the data includes some double counting of projects/operations. Other approaches to counting projects are discussed in section 5 below.
2.1 Progress over time ... increasing ERDF/CF thematic allocations to projects
The interactive chart below presents the development over time of in the number of thematic allocations to projects under the ERDF and Cohesion Fund. The filters provided allow you to explore the values by country, thematic objective, and fund.
2.2 Counting ERDF/CF projects by high level theme
The interactive chart below presents the cumulative number of thematic allocations to projects under the ERDF and Cohesion Fund thematic objectives for a specific year (check filter). The filters provided allow you to explore the values by year and country and fund.
3. ESF/YEI thematic allocations to projects
The interactive chart below presents the cumulative number of thematic allocations to projects under the ESF/YEI for a specific year. The filters provided allow you to explore the values by year and country.
4. Counting allocations by detailed thematic interventions
The interactive chart below presents the cumulative number of thematic allocations to projects for the selected "intervention fields" (detailed thematic priorities) for a specific year. The filters provided at the top right allow you to explore the values by fund, year, country, and intervention field.
Check the filters to see the specific selection presented.
5. Other sources of information on operations and beneficiaries
The national and regional programmes funded by cohesion policy funds collect and report three types of information on both "operations" and "beneficiaries". There are important differences in the nature and the level of information made available. Apart from the detailed thematic allocations (set out above) there are two other sources of data on operations and beneficiaries:
- Number of operations supported by each priority (investment envelopes) in each national, regional, or interregional programme, reported 3 times a year on 31 January, 31 July and 31 October to the Commission. The number of operations reported through this format is lower that presented above as it excludes double counting at priority level.
- The number of operations reported on national websites with EU financial support (and detailed theme specified). The lists of operations are not reported to the Commission but are made public. In many Member States the number of beneficiaries is also provided in the list of Operations.
5.1 Clarifying terms
We tend to use the terms "project" and "operations" interchangeably. In fact, the concept of "operation" covers a variety of different situations:
- A specific project promoted by a project manager (i.e. an investment in a research faculty in a university);
- A stage (or phase) of a long-term project (i.e. building a section of high-speed rail as part of a master project);
- A scheme supporting multiple beneficiaries (i.e. an energy efficiency scheme supporting 1 000 householders);
- A financial instrument fund (loan, equity, etc.) run by a financial intermediary, financing multiple enterprises (or other beneficiaries).