The general objective of this SWD is to report on the ex-post evaluation of investment in Research and Technological Development (RTD) infrastructures and activities supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in the period 2007-2013. To carry out the evaluation, the European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, contracted CSIL (Centre for Industrial Studies), in partnership with Prognos AG and Technopolis Consulting Group Belgium. The contract started on 1 September 2019 and the final report was published on 10 December 2021. This SWD is based on that work.
In total, for the period 2007-2013 around EUR17 billion of ERDF resources (5% of the total allocation) were invested through 215 Operational Programmes in projects supporting RTD2 infrastructure, competence centres and activities in Member States and regions. Based on reporting by Managing Authorities on categories of expenditure, around EUR11 billion of that sum went to support for infrastructure and around EUR6 billion to support for activities.
This evaluation focused on 53 Operational Programmes (OPs) selected by the European Commission out of the total of 215 OPs funded by the ERDF. These cover 18 of the 28 Member States involved, and a substantial amount of RTD investments (with EUR14.64 billion in funding, i.e. about 85% of the EU total funding for the relevant themes) under diverse contexts. Within the selected OPs, the evaluation study focused on two categories of ERDF expenditure (01 – RTD activities in research centres, and 02 – RTD infrastructure and centres of competence in a specific technology).
Public support for investment in firms directly linked to research and innovation was not covered by the evaluation.