This dataset provides cumulative financial information on the different "financial Instruments" supported by each specific ESI Fund programme, for each year of implementation.

Financial instruments are an array of (mainly) repayable forms of financial support used under the ESI Funds to deliver public investment. Those forms of financial support include equity, loans and guarantees. More information on the use of financial instruments under the ESI Funds is presented on this website http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/financial-instruments/ . There you will also find the "Annual Summaries of Data" prepared each year, which provide a description of the data as presented at a particular cut-off date.

This dataset presents information notified annually to the Commission by the national and regional programmes on the different financial instruments (fund of funds or specific funds) under the ESI Funds. This dataset will be updated regularly in order to show any corrections notified by the programmes during the quality checks and finalisation of the annual reports. For that reason the dataset may have more updated data than contained in the "Annual Summaries of Data".

In querying the dataset be aware of the following:
- The dataset presents cumulative values to the 31 December of each reference year, for multiple years (i.e. the 2018 value includes values already reported in 2017 and 2016). Therefore the values for different years **SHOULD NOT** be aggregated, but may be compared to see implementation progress;
- To calculate the total volume of financial instruments, aggregate only the values for "fund of funds" and "specific funds" in the column "FI type" ("Fund of fund specific funds" are a subset of the Funds of Funds);
- Given that (1) some financial instruments are funded by more than one programme and priority axis or measure and (2) there is separate reporting for each "fund of fund specific fund" under each "fund of fund", the number of rows in the dataset does not represent the total number of instruments but rather the total number of specific contributions from a priority axis of the operational programme (or measure in case of EAFRD).

In relation to guarantees,
- In column 'Total amount of programme contributions committed to final recipients', the amounts correspond to the amount of the programme contributions blocked (committed) in guarantee contracts signed, irrespective whether the loan was disbursed or not to final recipient;
- In the column 'Total amount of programme contributions paid to final recipients', the amounts correspond to the amount of the programme contributions blocked (committed) in guarantee contracts signed for loans which were disbursed to final recipients; irrespective whether the guarantee was called or not. In case of portfolio guarantees the amount is a portion of guarantee committed for loans paid to final recipients (in line with the multiplier ratio according to specific rules on guarantees delivered through financial instruments of Article 8 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 480/2014).

The definitions set by Commission guidance - https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/2014/working/guidance_monitoring_eval_en.pdf - for the common indicators used in 2014-2020.

This dataset provides information on expected achievements (targets) set for ERDF and Cohesion Fund programmes **specific indicators** defined by national and regional programmes, the decided (forecasts from selected projects) and implemented values.

The reference date for the annual reporting of progress by the programmes achievements is the end of each calendar year.
This dataset contains:
- Time series of the cumulative amounts reported annually for decided and implemented values (i.e. 2016 values include the 2015 values);
- To avoid double counting, the cumulative values from different years **should NOT be aggregated**;
- Allows comparison of the targets year on year (targets change with reallocation of financial resources);
- Allows comparison of decided (forecast) and implemented values with the targets set (allowing users to calculate the % rate of progress);

For more information on the common indicators' definitions used by each fund please go to the "Related Information" sections at the bottom of the fund specific pages and the data on the **common indicators** is available in this separate dataset: https://cohesiondata.ec.europa.eu/2014-2020/ESIF-2014-2020-Achievement-Details/aesb-873i

The report compares immediate and longer-term direct results with outputs achieved in the ESF programmes. For example, the number of ‘participants in employment’ is divided by the number of unemployed plus the number of inactive participants. The resulting percentage tells the share of participants who obtained a particular type of result, measured by a common indicator. The types of results are
• job-search (CR01,compared to the number of inactive participants),
• being in education or training (CR02, compared to the total of participants),
• gaining a qualification (CR03, compared to the total of participants),
• in employment (CR04, compared to unemployed+inactive) and
• a combination of all the above positive outcomes (CR01+CR02+CR03+CR04, compared to the total of participants), moreover,
• in employment 6 months after leaving (CR06, compared to unemployed+inactive),
• improved labour market situation 6 months after leaving (CR07, compared to employed) and finally
• participants above 54 years of age in employment 6 months after leaving (CR08, compared to unemployed+inactive).
The output, the number of participants includes persons who were still receiving support at the time of reporting and persons who dropped out of the operations before completion. If the comparison with the results was made only by taking into account the participants who complete the operation, the success rates would be higher. (The number of participants who complete the operation is not reported though.)
The report provides the success rates for all ESF operational programmes (CCIs) and priority axes at the level of the investment priority, broken down by category of region. Data on ESF common result indicators are taken from Tables 2A and 2B; data on ESF common output indicators are taken from Table 4A of the annual implementation reports.

This dataset includes the figures by Fund (European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Cohesion Fund,Youth Employment Initiative).

This file contains "categorisation data" from the ERDF/ESF/Cohesion Fund programmes as adopted (including modifications). The data is in current prices. It is regularly updated to reflect reprogramming notified by the programmes.

The data is provided in tables, one for each priority axis (investment pillar), for each specific programme. The categorisation system is defined in Implementing Regulation 215/2014 with 8 dimensions - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014R0215.
These dimension represent different ways of categorising the nature of the EU support (i.e. the intervention (activity) field, the form of finance, the territorial context, etc.).
In the programme documents only 4 dimensions were encoded for ERDF/ Cohesion Fund while 5 dimensions were encoded for ESF and can be found in the dataset. In analysing the content of the dataset the different dimension should be analysed separately - **NEVER AGGREGATE VALUES ACROSS DIMENSIONS** as otherwise double counting of the financial amounts will occur.

A second dataset found here - https://cohesiondata.ec.europa.eu/EU-Level/ESIF-2014-2020-Categorisation-Crosscutting-Themes-/xns4-t7ym - provides a lookup table for understanding how the Commission uses the intervention field codes to look at cross cutting issues such as investments in "innovation", "enterprise support", etc. That lookup dataset also has the "climate change tracking" weightings and a similar weighting system for "biodiversity tracking".

The Intervention field dimension is the most complete of the the different dimensions in terms of financial coverage. (NB although the SME initiative programmes were not asked to provide categorisation tables, because of simplified programming requirements, they have been manually added by DG REGIO.)

The total investments under other dimension may vary for different reasons (i.e. Technical assistance priority axes are not encoded in all dimensions, etc.)

If downloading, check the format of financial amounts and where necessary change your regional settings and default formatting in your chosen software. You can check the results of your aggregation of the financial data by comparing results with the pre-formatted charts profiled on this metadata page under “featured content”.

Explore the data at national and programme level using interactive charts.

Investment spending under the European Structural and Investment Funds for 2014-2020 doubled from 28% by the end of 2018 to 56% by the end of 2020. Find out more.