Frequently asked questions

Major Projects are investments financed under the European Structural Funds aimed at achieving results of broad strategic significance. Within them there are two essential types:

- investments in infrastructure (eg railways, subways, ports, motorways, purifiers and water networks, major renovations, ultra-broadband networks);

- productive investments (aid for the development of large industrial plants).

For the 2014-2020 period, Major Projects are considered above €75 million for projects that contribute to Thematic Objective 7 – “Promoting sustainable transport and removing bottlenecks in key network infrastructures”). 

In the 2007-2013 period, the financial amount of the Major Projects was set as exceeding 50 million euros.

Unlike “ordinary” projects of programmes co-financed by the Structural Funds, which are automatically chosen and approved for financing by the Managing Authority of the operational programme, Major Projects are subject to specific procedures for approval by the European Commission that envisage a long, complex review process that is carried out in close cooperation with various Commission bodies. During this process, numerous factors of interest to the EU are assessed including, in addition to general eligibility, an analysis of the costs and benefits and financial return, environmental compatibility and compliance with the applicable directives, and consistency with the internal market and competition rules, including the existence of any state aid. The process concludes with the Commission’s decision of approval, which ratifies the essential technical characteristics, eligible expenditure and multi-year financial plan and assigns the Major Project a common code for identification (CCI), analogous to that assigned to Programmes co-financed with Structural Funds. In the case of any changes or additions to a Major Project in the course of implementation, the same process must be followed to receive a new decision from the Commission.

For monitoring purposes, a Major Project can be monitored as a single project or as different projects, based on the characteristics of the specific Major Project. In the open data catalogues of projects being implemented, projects belonging to a Major Project are identified by the variable COD_GRANDE_PROGETTO, to which the CCI of the Major Project is added (see metadata).

Financial instruments are not considered Major Projects.

For the 2014-2020 period, the key regulation is Regulation (EU) No. 1303/2013 (Articles 100-103), while for the 2007-2013 cycle it is Regulation (EC) No. 1083/2006 (Articles 39-41). Important technical and operational instructions for Major Projects can also be found in various subsequent EU rules and legislation, including the guidelines on the closure of operational programmes for 2007-2013, annexed to Decision C(2015) 2771 (for the rules applicable to Major Projects not completed in 2007-2013 and, specifically, for those that span across to the 2012-2020 programming, see this FAQ).

The projects in OpenCoesione refer to actions financed under cohesion policy and are identified by an autonomous administrative act (for example, a tender, a list, an agreement, a contract, etc.). In certain cases, multiple projects may form part of a single intervention or are coordinated among themselves as part of a single intervention strategy. Since cohesion policy affects highly diverse sectors, projects may have very different financial resources, territorial scope and thematic contents. They may regard major infrastructure projects or an individual beneficiary receiving aid or some other form of support (vouchers, for example). Another source of diversity among projects is associated with the different monitoring procedures adopted by the managing authorities involved, which have a degree of discretion in identifying an individual project among a variety of interventions.

Each project is assigned a Single Project Code (Codice Unico di Progetto - CUP).

For projects in implementation, OpenCoesione makes available a subset of the information provided by the Unitary Monitoring System concerning the cost and financial state of progress of the project, its sectoral or thematic scope, where it is being implemented, the entities or persons involved, the implementation timetable and the indicators of bimonthly time series of financial commitments and payments.

The level of detail and comprehensiveness of the data may differ due to inconsistencies in the data or the inhomogeneous uploading of data to the Unitary Monitoring System by the bodies involved.

The data on the projects, accompanied by the related metadata, can be downloaded on the open data page in the form of a complete relational database (in the section "The database of OpenCoesione projects") and as a single table that can be easily edited (in the section "All projects of OpenCoesione"). They can also be downloaded in reprocessable form (.csv format) as a result of queries created ad hoc through the filters available (e.g. theme, territory and type of intervention) on OpenCoesione.

The OpenCoesione database consists of a total of 16 datasets, all connected to the main "Projects" dataset which contains the master data of all the projects in implementation available on the portal.

The Projects/Subjects/Locations/Phases/Indicators datasets contain precise monitoring data, while the Commitments and Payments datasets report, in the form of a historical series, the amounts relating to the individual payments made and the financial commitments for each project. The "Scope" datasets contain detailed information on how the projects are organized on the basis of the Programme or Plan to which they belong, distinctly by programming period and funding source. The projects that come together in several programming areas (for example projects financed with ERDF and FSC funds in the 2014-2020 period) are present in the related area datasets (ERDF1420 area and FSC1420 area).

The single dataset "Projects with extended layout" constitutes a compact version of the OpenCoesione database, since it adds to the master data of the projects also information on the location, on the procedural phases, on the connected subjects, on the associated indicators and on the articulation and classification within Programmes or Plans. It does not include historical series data on commitments and payments.

If the user's interest is addressed at a programming period or to one or more specific programming areas, regional territories or themes, the data of the "Projects with extended layout" dataset can also be downloaded disaggregated, taking into account the fact that projects that converge in several regions or funds can be repeated in the individual reference datasets.

By default, the portal displays a redefined perimeter net of some projects soon to be dismissed from monitoring, consequently the number of records in the Projects dataset that can be downloaded from the open data page is higher than the number of projects as reported on the portal, and coincides with the number of projects object of the RGS-IGRUE Bulletins.

Point of attention! The data downloaded on the Open data page contains a higher number of variables than those displayed in the project and subject tabs of the portal.

For projects funded by the European Structural Funds and by the national resources (National Development and Cohesion Fund and the Cohesion Action Plan) for the programming periods 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 the data source is the Unitary Monitoring System, which is populated using common protocols (more information here) by the managing authorities of the programmes and managed by the Inspectorate-General for Financial Relationships with the European Union (IGRUE) of the State General Accounting Department (Ragioneria Generale dello Stato - RGS).

Regional Administrations and Ministries that manage funds are therefore the main source of the information provided through OpenCoesione. Nevertheless, the data do undergo some further processing and cleaning to facilitate use and consistency. These variables are identified in the published open format datasets with the OC_ prefix.

It is possible to download the open data and the associated metadata on cohesion policy projects here.

The OpenCoesione website publishes the data on ongoing projects that have been financed with cohesion policy funds (2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027) and are contained in the Unitary Monitoring System operated by RGS-IGRUE. Starting from the update of the data as at 31 December 2016, the publications take into account the gradual adjustment of the data and are intended to provide as much as possible consistent and representative visualization of cohesion policy actions.

In particular, a new feature has been introduced to permit the default visualization of data and calculations for the set of projects not taking into account other certain projects that, while indicated as “active” in the Unitary Monitoring System, are scheduled to be dismissed from monitoring in the subsequent bimonthly updates by the managing authorities involved as they are duplicates of other active projects or have never actually been launched in the Operational Programmes. Accordingly, those projects are systematically excluded from all visualization and calculations on the portal, such as, for example, those reported on the home page and the pages aggregated by nature, theme, territory and programme.

“Search” results also provide by default a list aligned with visualizations and calculations, showing only “published projects”. However, in order to ensure maximum transparency in respect of the contents of the Unitary Monitoring System, the data on projects in the dismissing process can be included in the list of results using the new filter “Visualisation” and selecting “Excluded projects”.

The projects excluded from visualization and counting are in any case included in the universe of All OpenCoesione projects published in the open data section: to that end, the data structure of the “Projects” dataset of the open data catalogues classifies the excluded projects using a value for the new variable “OC_FLAG_VISUALIZZAZIONE” other than 0. This means that to reconstruct the totals for the tallies published on the website using the open data, it is necessary to select all the projects for which the variable “OC_FLAG_VISUALIZZAZIONE” is equal to 0.

The number of monitored projects represents the total number of projects currently being implemented in the reference two-month period. Projects whose monitoring is expected to be dismissed from the National Monitoring System are excluded from this counting. All monitored projects are displayed and navigable on the portal OpenCoesione.

No, these are two different information systems that maintain at the same time an unitary information architecture that has evolved in continuity with respect to the main variables observed.

Consult hereinafter the technical documents.

Starting from the update of the data monitored on 31/10/2022, the OpenCoesione portal makes available for the first time the data relating to the first “stralcio” assignments on the FSC 2021-2027 approved by CIPESS even in the absence of the new “Banca Dati Unica” - hereinafter BDU 2021-2027. All programmes deriving from these assignments are therefore re-associated with the 2021-2027 programming period, even if monitored in the 2014-2020 BDU.

On the other hand, and starting from the update of the monitored data on 28/02/2019 on the OpenCoesione portal, the projects belonging to the following Programmes that have been monitored with the information system of the 2014-2020 period, are correctly re-associated with the 2007-2013 programming period:

• Naples ring road connection

• Rome urban security plan

• FSC resources for the Municipalities

As well the following Programmes monitored with the information system of the 2007-2013 period are correctly re-associated with the 2014-2020 programming period:

• 2016ABAMPSAP01 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS ABRUZZO REGION

• 2016EMAMPSAP02 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS REGION OF EMILIA ROMAGNA

• 2016LIAMPSAP03 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS REGION OF LIGURIA

• 2016LOAMPSAP06 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS IN LOMBARDY

• 2016 SAAMPSAP04 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS REGION OF SARDINIA

• 2016TOAMPSAP05 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS REGION OF TUSCANY

• 2016VEAMPSAP07 - PRIORITY PLAN FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS REGION OF VENETO

The aforementioned programmes have merged into the FSC hydrogeological instability Plan.

The Unique Project Code (CUP) identifies a project financed with public resources and consists of a 15-character alphanumeric string. It is one of the main classification features adopted in order to ensure the transparency and traceability of public financial flows and is also a variable recorded in the National Monitoring System of the cohesion policies. On the OpenCoesione portal, the CUP is reported as the first information indicated in the column of each project sheet, and it is used as a key for projects' search.

The CUP request is mandatory for all operations financed with national and EU public funds, therefore - with reference to cohesion policies - both the European Structural and Investment Funds, the National Fund for Development and Cohesion and the funds of the Plan of Action and Cohesion.

The CUP is released upon request and following the filling out of several data concerning the public investment project within the CUP System. Some of these data, such as the nature, type or sector of intervention, are reported on the OpenCoesione portal. It is possible to consult the metadata to find out which are the variables coming from the CUP information kit.

The data of the CUP are available in open format on the OpenCUP portal. In the portal it is possible to consult and perform the search on all the investment projects connected to CUP whose nature is public works, grants or contributions for disasters.

Yes, the data downloaded in the open data section contain a larger number of variables than those visualised in the portal’s project fact sheets and in the CSV results from the queries on the website. In the latter case, in order to enable immediate and consistent interpretation of the search, the downloaded file returns a narrower set of variables than that available in the complete files

Yes, some of the projects published on OpenCoesione have extra information available above and beyond that from the variables selected from the website’s data sources. It comes from open data published by other bodies, which OpenCoesione uses to enrich the project fact sheet displayed. For example, this is the case of the summaries of the interventions associated with the National Operational Programme Governance and Technical Assistance ERDF 2007-2013 and the National Operational Programme Research and Competitiveness ERDF 2007-2013. In these cases, the project fact sheet also contains links to the original data source.

The entities involved in cohesion policy projects can be public or private (Public Administrations, a non-profit institutions, an individual person or an enterprise) and can assume two different roles in one or more projects:

• Planning authority: the entity responsible for the decision to finance the project. It is generally a Regional Authority or a Ministry.

• Implementing authority: the entity responsible for implementing the project. In the case of the Structural Funds 2007-2013, it corresponds to the "beneficiary" (Art. 2 of Regulation (EC) no. 1083/2006), namely the entity that receives the funding. The implementing authority may in turn use other entities in implementing the project, but under the rules of the 2007-2013 period, these are not necessarily tracked in the monitoring system.

• Beneficiary: a public or private body responsible for the implementation of operation. In case of the projects comprised in the Programmes financed by EAFRD and/or by EMFF corresponds with a natural person. In the context of State aid schemes, the beneficiary is intended as the body which receives the aid; and in case the project takes the form of a financial instrument, the beneficiary is the body that implements the financial instrument. In European Territorial Cooperation Programmes, there may be several beneficiaries considering that projects are implemented by international partnerships composed by public and/or private organizations

• Executor: the party that actually executes the project; in the case of public works, it is the entity awarded with the contract and that actually executes the works; in the same way, for a project to purchase goods or services, the executor is the entity to which the contract to provide the goods or service was awarded

For each ongoing project, the dates relating to the procedural progress are available in OpenCoesione for each project, from the beginning to the conclusion of the activities. The procedural progress changes according to the nature of the projects (for example, the process of an infrastructural project is more complex than the process of a project for the acquisition of goods or services.

Point of attention! Since these are variables that the competent Administrations are not obliged to provide in the unitary monitoring system, the source of OpenCoesione data for the ongoing projects, the information on the start and end of the project is not always available. In particular, the project end date may not have been updated on the monitoring system even if the intervention is completed. In order to evaluate the progress of the project, it may therefore be useful to look not only at this information but also at the relation between payments disbursed and the total amount of project funding.

For OpenCoesione the variable “total public funding” (the value of the funding displayed on the home page and the other aggregate pages on the website) represents the part of the value of a project funded by public sources of financing. In addition to Community and national resources specifically designated for cohesion, it also includes other types of public resources (for example, ordinary resources appropriated by municipalities, provinces or regions) that each project financed within the cohesion policy framework can activate.

The "public cost" of a project is the total public financing net of savings and is displayed on the home page, on other aggregate pages and on each project page. (see the variable OC_FINANZ_TOT_PUB_NETTO, calculated as the difference between the field FINANZ_TOTALE_PUBBLICO and the field ECONOMIE_TOTALI_PUBBLICHE).

In the Projects dataset that can be downloaded in the Open Data section of the OpenCoesione website, the variable for total public funding is present in the form FINANZ_TOTALE_PUBBLICO and public cost, namely total net public funding, is given as OC_FINANZ_TOT_PUB_NETTO. The metadata file provides detailed descriptions.

The time series of payments published on OpenCoesione, which is obtained from the variables present in the Unitary Monitoring System updated by the bodies involved, also includes recoveries, i.e. flows with the opposite sign of payments, representing the restitution of amount paid out previously (drawing, for example, on advances for projects that were subsequently found to not be eligible or were not refunded, which the beneficiary is asked to repay). The payments variable may therefore also have a negative value.

The series corresponds to the expenditures incurred by the beneficiary (or implementing authority) of the project, with the exception of transfers of resources to a guarantee fund, where the “payment” refers to the transfer.

In the Projects and Payments datasets downloadable in the Download Open Data section of the website, the payments variable is given as TOT_PAGAMENTI. Other variables include OC_TOT_PAGAMENTI_RENDICONTABILI_UE, OC_TOT_PAGAMENTI_FSC and OC_TOT_PAGAMENTI_PAC, which are subsets of the first. The Metadata file provides a detailed description.

The Payments dataset contains a detailed breakdown of payments by date of payment execution, whereas in previous updates the data was presented in the form of the bimonthly aggregate of cumulative payments.

Savings generated during the implementation of a project consist of reductions in expenditures compared with budget, i.e. resources that can be used for some other purpose, normally within the same programme or instrument.

Savings are generally attributable to:

• savings from the calls for tenders for the contracts necessary for the implementation of the project;

• savings generated during the project as a result of the reprogramming of the financial framework;

• final savings from reductions in expenditures, which are registered in a project’s final accounts.

On the basis of the OpenCoesione “project status” classification, a project may not have been launched, is still ongoing, is settled (when a full payment ratio of more than 95% is not associated with the completion of the project execution) or concluded. For a detailed definition of the “project status” variable and the values it can have, see the metadata file accompanying the datasets in the Download open data section. 

For OpenCoesione, completed project means a project with a payment ratio of more than 95% and whose execution end date falls before the final monitoring date. Payment ratio means the ratio of payments to total public funding net of savings.

Up to a certain update, if the financial plan of a project in the Unitary Monitoring System is modified with the exclusion of cohesion policy resources, that project is considered inactive in the system. The reasons for its inactive status (e.g. revocation, suspension, replacement with other projects) does not necessarily mean the inactive project no longer exists. In order to provide as complete a picture as possible of the implementation of policies in Italy, these projects may continue to be displayed in OpenCoesione, but are excluded from tallies and search results and are not included in the open data datasets.

More specifically, in navigating projects on the website, inactive projects are distinguished from active projects with a different project factsheet. 

It is an aggregation carried by automatic algorithms based on: 

• EU priority themes and EU intervention fields associated with individual projects co-financed respectively in the two programming periods 2007-2013 and 2014-2020; 

• sectoral classifications of the CUP System. 

In attributing a project to a synthetic theme, the guiding criteria is the connection with the EU priority themes or EU intervention fields. Only in case of absence or inapplicability of the latter the CUP classification prevails. 

Starting from the publication of the updated data as of 28th February 2022, the synthetic themes of OpenCoesione are 11: Research and innovation, Networks and digital services, Enterprises' competitiveness, Energy, Environment, Culture and tourism, Transport and mobility, Employment and labour, Social inclusion and health, Education and training, Administrative capacity. 

Up to 31st December 2021 there were 13 instead.

It is possible to consult the comparison among the synthetic themes, EU priority themes , intervention themes and CUP classification.

There are two main differences between these two typologies of data available on the OpenCoesione portal.

The Synthetic Themes stand for automatic classification of all the projects monitored on the portal, while the Focuses are defined by thematic experts operating in the specific sector or in the sector of the policies of the cohesion policy, based on the detailed analysis of each of the projects.

The second difference stands in the attribution: the automatic algorithm classifies each project to only one synthetic theme, while the single project may be attributed to more then one Focuses at the same time.

At the current stage the Focuses published on the portal are not related to all the projects. On the contrary all the projects published on the portal are classified by only one synthetic theme.

The navigable and downloadable monitoring data available on the OpenCoesione portal are updated when the data source is updated represented by the Unitary Monitoring System, managed by the Inspectorate-General for Financial Relationships with the European Union (IGRUE) of the State General Accounting Department (Ragioneria Generale dello Stato - RGS). Data are updated on a bimonthly basis by all the bodies involved in implementing cohesion policy in Italy and are published on OpenCoesione about two months after the reference date. 

The data on the cohesion policy context are updated with different frequencies: for example the territorial and thematic indicators of ISTAT database are updated on a monthly basis,  the data of the Regional Public Accounts are updated annually. The different update dates are shown at the bottom of the description of the individual datasets on the open data page.

The OpenCoesione data are accompanied by metadata and a license agreement.  The data are available in CSV format. In some cases the files are compressed for easier downloading.

The OpenCoesione CSV file settings are:

·     encoding: Unicode (UTF-8)

·     language: Italian (Italy)

The CSV files use the comma as the decimal separator (the European standard).

The open data on projected funded under cohesion policy initiatives are organized on a relational basis: "Projects" is the main dataset and can be downloaded alone, while "Locations", "Entities" and "Payments" provide information connected with the main dataset through a key field that identifies the same project in the various tables.

The open data on the cohesion policy context, from the expenditure certified to the European Union to social and economic data broken down at the territorial level, from statistical indicators to the Regional Public Accounts.

The data are also available in JSON format through the OpenCoesione APIs.

The projects falling within the Framework Programme Agreements (APQ) signed as part of the National Strategy for Internal Areas (SNAI) and included in the National Monitoring System (SNM) based on the criteria set out in the IGRUE operational note for monitoring the National Strategy for Internal Areas and further notes which include:

• Criteria A: association with the complex Project relating to the Project Area / Internal Area of ​​the Strategy to which the project refers

• Criteria B: association with the Implementation Tool relating to the Framework Programme Agreement to which the project refers.

Projects which - while respecting the monitoring criteria - are not compatible with the Internal Areas National Strategy are temporarily excluded from this set, until the alignment of the monitoring data expected in the upcoming future updates.

Among the most frequent reasons that lead to the exclusion of a project are:

• the attribution to an Internal Area of ​​a project located in a Municipality not belonging to the Area

• the attribution to an Internal Area of ​​a project funded by Programmes / Plans / Attributions by law that not included in the Framework Programme Agreement of a specific Area

The inclusion in the National Monitoring System of data on projects in progress takes place separately and in parallel by the various Administrations responsible for monitoring the Programmes.

On occasion of the update at  31/10//2022 OpenCoesione makes available for the first time the data relating to the first assignments in the FSC 2021-2027 approved by CIPESS.

The single protocol 21-27 is being defined which will also allow for all the cohesion policy programmes envisaged by the 2021-2027 Partnership Agreement, the transmission of data to the new Unitary Data Bank BDU 2021-2027.