Regional governance in the context of globalisation: reviewing governance mechanisms and administrative costs

This is the first study to provide a systematic evidence-based survey of the administrative workload and costs for Member State public authorities of the implementation of the European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund during the 2007-2013 period.

The study concluded that:

• an estimated 3-4% of total eligible expenditure is devoted to administration
• there are considerable variations in administrative costs and workload between programmes
• the highest proportion of administrative costs lies with the Managing Authorities
• there is a heavy workload associated with project selection and verification of deliverables.