Representativeness: How representative is the data in keep.eu? How is it estimated?
At any given moment, keep.eu users can see how much the data on projects and partners reflects the actual work taking place in Interreg. The Representativeness page in keep.eu shows how complete and up to date the database is across programmes, projects, and partnerships, as estimated by Interact. This helps users assess the coverage and reliability of the data they are working with.
Interact prepares these estimates by collecting the total number of projects and partners in Interreg quarterly. The Representativeness page, therefore, also provides a reliable estimate of the total number of past and ongoing Interreg projects (and their partners) at any given moment. Updates follow a four-month cycle, with new estimates usually finalised by the end of January, May, and September. The specific update dates are displayed directly on the Representativeness page.
The process making this possible is described below:
1. The keep.eu data manager reviews all Interreg programme websites to collect the number of contracted projects and partnerships (or, if no further information is available, the number of approved projects).
2. The data manager enters the collected figures into each programme page in keep.eu. These figures appear in the Information on this programme’s project and partner data in keep.eu table, located at the bottom of each programme page. The table also shows the figures for projects and partnerships retrieved directly from the database. Example: See the 2021–2027 Interreg VI-A Austria–Czechia page in keep.eu and scroll down to the metadata table.
3. Keep.eu’s system aggregates the figures from all programme pages, combines them with the automatically retrieved database figures, and displays them in the charts, tables, and Excel files on the Representativeness page.
4. The keep.eu project and product manager updates the end date of the most recent programme website review, along with the overall planned end date of the next review. Both these dates are shown on the Representativeness page (top right-hand side).
5. The data manager informs all Interreg programmes once each round of updates is completed. This information is typically emailed to keep.eu’s programme contact within five working days after the latest review. Programmes are asked to check their data and request corrections from Interact if needed.
Further details of this process can be found here.