Joint Assistance to Support Projects in European Regions (JASPERS)

Programme/Initiative
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Funded By
The European Commission and the European Investment Bank
2 245 projects
About

JASPERS, a partnership funded by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, advises on strategies and projects that contribute to a greener, more connected, and more innovative Europe. Our support help beneficiaries align their projects with the highest EU standards, improving their chances of securing EU funding.

Free assistance for local authorities and promoters

We offer free assistance to national, regional and local authorities, as well as other beneficiaries of EU funds, in EU, pre-accession, and Eastern partnership countries. Our team is composed of over 120 staff within the European Investment Bank, and covers a wide range of expertise.

We support the entire project cycle, from planning to execution as well as technical training.

Working from six locations

To better serve our beneficiaries, we work from six locations. In addition to our Luxembourg headquarters, more than 70% of our experts are based in Brussels, Bucharest, Sofia, Vienna, and Warsaw.

Type of service
Capacity building/skilling
Urban themes covered

Operational topics
Resource and funding
Access to funding
Target audience

  • Public Authorities and Project Promoters: JASPERS collaborates with public authorities and project promoters responsible for investments delivering Europe’s cohesion policy, assisting them in strategy and project preparation, capacity building, and independent quality reviews.

  • Managing Authorities: These act as the central coordinators in each country, managers of Cohesion Policy programmes, requesting assistance from JASPERS and ensuring alignment with EU requirements.

  • Beneficiaries of European Grant Funds: JASPERS supports beneficiaries of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Cohesion Fund (CF), Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU), Just Transition Fund (JTF) and Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

  • Less Experienced Regional Authorities: With a focus on capacity building, JASPERS aims to support less experienced regional authorities and first-time beneficiaries, particularly under initiatives like the Just Transition Fund.

  • Local Authorities, Project Developers, and Intermediate Bodies: JASPERS works with these stakeholders to prepare strategies and sustainable projects across a wide range of sectors, including circular economy, energy efficiency, smart cities, and climate adaptation.

Key activities and platforms
JASPERS SUPPORT IN PROJECT PREPARATION
• Strategic planning:
Support in developing strategies in a sector or subsector at national or local level, for example national transport strategy, urban mobility plans, flood and disaster risk management plans, or regional and urban climate adaptation, which underpin the project pipeline for EU funding.
Support in formulating strategies, such as smart specialisation and urban strategic frameworks.
Identification of project pipelines and preparation of action plans.

• Project development
Review of terms of reference, concept studies, methodological approaches, feasibility studies, cost–benefit analyses, environmental impact assessments, and grant application documents.
Identification of areas for improvement.
Ensure consistency with EU requirements and best practices.
Recommendations to beneficiaries, their consultants and EU funds’ managing authorities

• Horizontal tasks
Analysis of and advice on issues related to a number of projects, a sector, or a country.
Identification and removal of barriers to project preparation or future implementation, such as costbenefit analysis, option analysis, environmental or state aid regulation.
Methodological papers and guidelines

• Implementation support
Selective support during preparation of the works tender, support for the setup of project implementation units, or targeted support on specific project implementation issues, such as procurement strategies.
CAPACITY-BUILDING SUPPORT
Capacity building is a cornerstone element in the relationship between JASPERS and its beneficiaries, and the result of JASPERS' close interaction with public authorities and project managers.
The range of delivery of JASPERS’ capacity-building support includes dedicated in-person or virtual training, workshops, knowledge-sharing and networking activities, train-the-trainer programmes (in partnership with the requesting authorities), technical guidance papers and checklists, and on-the-job training.

JASPERS regularly offers dedicated activities for beneficiaries through its networking platform at www.jaspersnetwork.org to consolidate lessons learnt, disseminate knowledge and support capacity strengthening on cross-sectoral issues such as environment, cost-benefit analysis and economic appraisal, climate change and State aid. The platform hosts a wealth of content, including training materials, workshop proceedings and working papers.
INDEPENDENT PROJECT-APPRAISAL SUPPORT
If requested by beneficiary countries, JASPERS can perform independent quality reviews to assist authorities in the decision-making process and help them benefit from the European Commission’s streamlined grant approval procedure.
JASPERS continues to refine its approach to appraising investments, aiming to ensure that evaluation of projects is harmonised and consistent across Member States and sectors.
The engagement of our experts in the appraisal process has substantially reduced the average time taken by the Commission to process major project approvals.

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