The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) is inviting European regions to express their interest to contribute to the Pilot Project "REGIONS2030: Monitoring the SDGs in the EU regions - Filling the data gaps", supported by the European Parliament.

The REGIONS2030 Pilot Project is designed to deliver the following results:

• Select and test a harmonised set of existing indicators for EU regions to monitor the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in order to verify the possibility to cover all EU regions
• Increase the knowledge and capacities of EU regions to monitor and report on the SDGs.

The project will be implemented, inter alia, through the involvement of up to 10 European regions, which i) share a strong ambition to monitor the achievement of the SDGs and ii) are willing to explore the synergies of SDGs monitoring, policy-making and sustainable regional development.

The participating regions are expected to work with experts and partners to develop, test and improve a framework of indicators for monitoring the achievement of the SDGs at regional level. They will contribute to defining the method and identifying the relevant indicators at NUTS2 level, which will be eventually used in the whole of the EU. Where relevant, regions could propose additional customised indicators to reflect different contexts. The overall aim is to cover all SDGs and the majority of the 169 targets.

At the same time, regions are expected to enhance the relationship with national authorities and other stakeholders that could help to enrich the Pilot Project output and contribute to future collaborations. The REGIONS2030 Pilot Project also includes training and dissemination activities that the selected regions are expected to actively participate in.

The deadline for submitting an expression of interest is now extended until 10 October 2022 (midnight CEST, Brussels time). 

More information about the project and how to apply is available here.