The Regional Growth Fund (RGF) is the most important English scheme for regional investment aid. Furthermore, it offers compensation for assistance costs to disadvantaged workers, aid for SMEs and undertakings to enable adaptation to Union standards for environmental protection, energy efficiency and reconversion, broadband, culture and heritage, risk finance and start-ups, and for local infrastructure and industrial research. The scheme is running since 2010, but the current evaluation covers the period 2015-2019. The rationale to establishing this state aid originates from the difficulties companies might encounter to access financial resources, which represent a market failure that could result in underinvestment in R&D and, in turn, exacerbate regional disparities.
