Co-financing by EU funds of operations which generate net revenue after their completion (Art. 61(3) of the Common Provisions Regulations) shall only cover that part of investment not covered by the revenue generated by the project itself (so called funding gap). The flat-rate approach has been introduced as an alternative to the funding gap method for the programming period 2014-2020 to determine ex-ante the amount of European Structural and Investment (ESI) funds support for revenues generating projects. The flat-rate approach is generally considered an important simplification and a measure for reducing administrative burdens for both programme authorities and beneficiaries. Based on collection and analysis of reliable and representative historic data, the study will determine flat-rate revenue percentages for the sectors of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Research, development and innovation (RDI), and Energy Efficiency (EE) to apply to revenue-generating operations co-financed by the ESI funds.

The report of the study is available here.