The Twin transition in the European Union: Assessing regional patterns of EU-funded investments

The twin green and digital transition is at the heart of the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery and represents a key element of the new growth strategy. The present paper aims to offer a novel perspective on the twin transition by illustrating the geographical concentration of ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) projects associated with green, digital and twin funded-investments, with the last category encompassing projects that integrate green and digital investments simultaneously. Using a novel dataset of projects covering 238 regions of the 27 EU countries for the 2014–2020 period, we find that there seems to be a geographical pattern of the twin transition in the European Union for green, digital and twin projects. However, a binary choice model suggests that the probability of socioeconomic factors to explain these ERDF investments differs by the target of fund (e.g. interregional collaboration, research and innovation). Finally, we report the existence of a substantial heterogeneity in terms of regional policies associated with the twin transition.

BARBERO Javier;  COLLADO Luis A.;  RODRIGUEZ-CRESPO Ernesto;  MARQUES SANTOS Anabela; 

2025-12-02

ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

JRC130270

1469-5944 (online),   

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09654313.2025.2528882,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC130270,   

10.1080/09654313.2025.2528882 (online),