The Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI) has been measuring the major factors of competitiveness over the past ten years for all the NUTS-2 level regions across the European Union. The Index measures with more than 70 comparable indicators the ability of a region to offer an attractive and sustainable environment for firms and residents to live and work.

This file contains categorisation data from the ERDF/ESF/Cohesion Fund programmes and in particular it **COMPARES PLANNED AMOUNTS TO IMPLEMENTED INVESTMENTS**.
The data will be updated regularly to reflect updated information transmitted. The implementation values are reported once a year by the 350+ programmes at end January. This dataset contains data to end-2016 and end 2017. As the data is cumulative the **ANNUAL VALUES SHOULD NOT BE AGGREGATED *** but may be compared to see progress.

The planned data is provided in tables one for each priority axis (investment pillar) of each programme. The categorisation systems is defined in Implementing Regulation 215/2014 with 8 dimensions in total - 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. Data on 3 other dimensions is only provided in the implementation reports - Location, Economic Dimension, ERDF/CF Thematic Objective - and therefore there is no planned amount to compare. In analysing the content of the dataset **THE DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS SHOULD BE ANALYSED SEPARATELY AS OTHERWISE DOUBLE COUNTING OF FINANCIAL AMOUNTS WILL OCCUR**.
This information note provides more detail on the categorisation system 2014-2020: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/informat/2014/guidance_categorisation_climate_en.pdf

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".

This dataset includes the figures by Fund (European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Cohesion Fund)

This dataset provides information on expected achievements (targets) set for selected common indicators defined for the each of the specific ESI funds and 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 was extracted on **12 December 2017** and 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 ESF / YEI only the implemented values are reported (no decided (forecast) values) and targets were not obligatory in each case.

For more information on the common indicator definitions used by each fund please go to the "Related Information" sections at the bottom of the fund specific pages.

This dataset provides time series information on the financial implementation on the ground of the 530+ ESI Funded programmes. The data is cumulative, i.e. 2016 values included the finances implemented for 2015. Therefore the value for different years **MUST NOT BE AGGREGATED**

The financial implementation data is disaggregated by fund, programme, priority axis, thematic objective and category of regions (where available). The data is provided by the managing authorities of the 530+ programmes on at least an annual basis. For some funds the data is provided more regularly:

- ERDF/ESF/CF/YEI: financial data on select operations and expenditure declared by them is provided to the Commission 3 times a year on 31/1, 31/7 and 31/10 with data up until 31/12, 30/6 and 30/9 respectively;
- EAFRD: Financial data on selected projects is provided to the Commission annually (the EAFRD data on spending is derived from certified expenditure reported);
- EMFF: data is provided to the Commission annually up until 31/12.

A detailed description of all the variables in the dataset is provided in the metadata file ESIF_Implemented Finance_Data_Description_of_Dataset_20161219.xlsx (in Attachments below).

Further details on the "finances implemented" data and the other forms of are provided also in the "About" section (FAQs) accessible from the platform - http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/faq/about_open_data/#8

EU Cohesion Policy (European Regional Development Fund + Cohesion Fund + European Social Fund) including European Territorial Cooperation. Percentage of funds paid (including interim payments and pre-financing) compared to total available budget. This data is refreshed every 24 hours. Source: Infoview > Financial Management > Financial_execution_by_period_fund_country

***** UPDATE: 3/9/2019 *****
With the release of the June 2019 data on "finances implemented" the Commission also makes a correction to the way it compares planned finances with decided finances (selected) for cohesion policy funds. The total planned amounts include programmes (or priorities) that are expressed either in 1) in public cost only, or 2) in total cost (i.e. including private financing). Some of the programmes expressed in public cost were reporting in finances implemented in "total costs of decided (selected) operations (including private cost)" and in "public cost of decided operations". To more accurately reflect the correct selection rate the Commission now takes only the public cost decided for those "public cost" programmes (or priorities). The correction is applied to all new data published and retroactively. The effect is to reduce the cohesion policy selection rate by -0.7% points for end 2018. The change mainly affects ERDF and programmes in following Member States - BE, BG, IT, MT, PT and RO.
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This data set provides time series information on the financial implementation on the ground of the 530+ ESI Funded programmes. The data is cumulative, i.e. 2016 values included the finances implemented for 2015. Therefore the value for different years **MUST NOT BE AGGREGATED**

The financial implementation data is disaggregated by fund, programme, priority axis, thematic objective and category of regions (where available). The data is provided by the managing authorities of the 530+ programmes on at least an annual basis. For some funds the data is provided more regularly:

- ERDF/ESF/CF/YEI: financial data is provided to the Commission 3 times a year on 31/1, 31/7 and 31/10 with data up until 31/12, 30/6 and 30/9 respectively;
- EAFRD: Financial data is to the Commission biannually on 31/1 and 30/09 with data up until 31/12 and 30/08 respectively;
- EMFF: data is provided to the Commission annually up until 31/12.

A detailed description of all the variables in the dataset is provided in the metadata file ESIF_Implemented Finance_Data_Description_of_Dataset_20161219.xlsx (in Attachments below).

Further details on the "finances implemented" data and the other forms of are provided also in the "About" section providing FAQs accessible from the platform - http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/faq/about_open_data/#8

1. PURPOSE: This data set provides, in a single source, regionalised (NUTS-2) annual EU expenditure data (in current prices) for specific EU funds - ERDF, Cohesion Fund, EAFRD/EAGGF and ESF. This data can be used, among other purposes, to facilitate analysis on the effects of the EU funds.

In terms of the regionalisation of EU payments made, this work expands and replaces data sets previous published on the ERDF and Cohesion fund with additional years and additional EU funds.
The following studies on ERDF and Cohesion fund expenditure are to a large extent now superseded:
- "Geography of expenditure" Work Package 13 of the ERDF and CF ex-post evaluation 2007-2013 - http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/evaluations/ec/2007-2013/#13
- "Final Report - ERDF and CF Regional Expenditure" (2000-2006) - SWECo 2008 - http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/evaluation/pdf/expost2006/expenditure_final.pdf
- "The Territorial Effects of the Structural Funds" (1994-1999) - ESPON 2005, study 2.2.1 - http://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_ESPON2006Projects/Menu_PolicyImpactProjects/structuralfundsimpact.html

The dataset does not contain any identification of the thematic nature of the investments made. This is because there was no harmonised system or information available across funds and across programme periods to estimate the thematic composition of the investments. For the ERDF and Cohesion Fund the studies cited above provided some thematic information for specific programme periods.

2. SCOPE

2.1 REGIONALISATION: This dataset provides the most complete historic picture available to date on the annual EU payments made under different shared management funds mapped to or estimated by NUTS-2 regions;
=> presented in the column "EU_payment_annual".

The work undertaken to regionalise the payment data is predominantly based on the NUTS-2013 version as described in the final report of the 2016 WIIW study (link below). In case the EU funded programmes covered more than one NUTS-2 region the regionalisation of the payments was carried out using either (1) regionalised data provided by the managing authorities or (2) the application of certain apportioning rules to the payments in order to estimate the share of the payment by NUTS-2 region.

In regionalising the data, information on the specific national or regional funding programme, which were the source of the payments, was not retained in the processing of the dataset.

2.2 MODELLING OF “REAL” EXPENDITURE: The yearly breakdown of the dataset follows the cycle of the European Commission payments to the Member States and not the date on which real expenditures took place on the ground. This characteristic may negatively affect any subsequent analytic work to carry out policy assessments.

In order to develop a more realistic estimate of the annual profile of real expenditure, the Commission tasked BERGEN to undertake work to develop a modelling of the “real” annual expenditure on the ground, and to test the robustness and sensitivity of assumptions used (see link to final report below).
=> the modelled annual expenditure is presented in the column "Modelled_annual_expenditure" and it represents the mean of 100 000 simulations on the annual EU payments to estimate real expenditure.
=> The column "Standard_Deviation_of modelled_annual_expenditure" provides the standard deviation of the “modelled_annual_expenditure" which is the root mean square of the set of deviations between each estimated annual payment in 100 000 simulations and the mean of the estimations, presented in the column "Modelled_annual_expenditure”.
=> The column "Standard_Error_of_modelled_annual_expenditure" provides the Standard Error of the "Modelled_annual_expenditure", which is a measure of how far this mean is likely to be from its expected value; that is, its scatter in repeated experiments.

3. COVERAGE: The dataset currently covers the regionalisation of