@article {4472,
	title = {Contributing to territorial cohesion by EU cohesion policy financial instrument? The JESSICA implementation in Poland},
	journal = {European Planning Studies},
	volume = {33},
	year = {2025},
	month = {09/2025},
	pages = {1023},
	abstract = {The paper examines the territorial distribution of the JESSICA funding support (Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas), a financial engineering instrument of EU Cohesion Policy among Polish cities. It addresses an existing gap in the literature and provides an analysis of a spatial distribution of repayable assistance, which is absent in CP studies. The study i) provides a comprehensive overview of the spatial distribution of the JESSICA funding across cities within particular regions, focusing on smaller cities regarded as secondary territorial cohesion cities (ScTCC) that should play an important role in territorialized development policy; (ii) assesses to what extent the JESSICA projects in SCTCC fit in with spatial-functional arrangements laid down in the regional spatial management plans; (iii) determines factors of the attractiveness of ScTCC as the JESSICA beneficiaries. Results confirm that ScTCC have enough capacities to implement revolving instrument projects, outperformed the capital cities in implementing the JESSICA projects, and are important but under-researched and under-represented actors of the urban and cohesion policy.},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, financial engineering instruments, JESSICA initiative, Poland, secondary territorial cohesion cities (ScTCC), territorial cohesion},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2025.2550988},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09654313.2025.2550988?src=exp-la},
	author = {Musia{\l}kowska, Ida and Piotr Idczak}
}
@book {4410,
	title = {EU Cohesion Policy. A Multidisciplinary Approach},
	year = {2024},
	pages = {380},
	publisher = {Edward Elgar Publishing},
	organization = {Edward Elgar Publishing},
	abstract = {This engaging and topical book comprehensively explores the complexities surrounding the EU Cohesion Policy, which has been addressing regional and urban development across Europe since the 1980s. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it not only considers the goals of this long-term investment policy, which is to reduce territorial disparities between Member States and their regions, but also considers the role it plays in the European integration process and the challenges the EU will face in its future.},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, Cross-border cooperation, European integration, Multilevel governance, Next Generation EU, Post-COVID19 recovery, Territorial development},
	isbn = { 9781802209402},
	issn = {978 1 80220 939 6},
	doi = {10.4337/9781802209402},
	url = {https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook/book/9781802209402/9781802209402.xml},
	author = {Nicola F. Dotti and Ida Musia{\l}kowska and Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado and Julia Walczyk}
}
@inbook {4411,
	title = {The origins of the EU Cohesion Policy: from regional economic development to the place-based approach},
	booktitle = {EU Cohesion Policy. A Multidisciplinary Approach},
	year = {2024},
	pages = {10-29},
	abstract = {The overarching objective of the EU Cohesion Policy is to promote the harmonious development of its regions and cities to achieve continuous, coherent, and sustainable development throughout the entire European Union, particularly those less developed. This chapter presents the changes in Cohesion Policy since the mid-1970s, highlighting the shift towards an approach focused on territorial contexts and the endogenous competitive potential of territories. The chapter concentrates on the shift from a traditional policy reducing the socioeconomic disparities between European territories through sectoral interventions to a place-based approach in which policy measures and financial resources are tailored to specific places. This place-based approach aims at bringing policies and activities from different levels of government together. Therefore, policy interventions shifted from being limited to deprived areas to constituting an inherent part of the EU{\textquoteright}s development policies.},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, European Union, Place-based, Territorial development, Territorial dimension},
	doi = {10.4337/9781802209402.00012},
	url = {https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781802209402/book-part-9781802209402-12.xml},
	author = {Piotr Idczak and Ida Musia{\l}kowska and Dagmara Kociuba}
}
@book {4353,
	title = {Financial Engineering in Sustainable Funding of Urban Development in the EU Reflections on the JESSICA Initiative},
	year = {2022},
	pages = {1-243},
	publisher = {De Gruyter},
	organization = {De Gruyter},
	address = {Berlin/ Boston},
	abstract = {This theoretically rooted and research-based book provides insights on the JESSICA funding model which {\textendash} unlike the traditional non-repayable aid {\textendash} focuses on supporting sustainable urban development projects in a repayable and recyclable way. Looking through the lens of the JESSICA financial engineering mechanism used in urban transformation, it examines the functioning and performance thereof and formulates policy recommendations for the future. The aim of this volume is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the JESSICA sustainable funding model by exploring its repayable assistance mechanism to support sustainable urban development projects. The authors make several noteworthy contributions to the literature on EU cohesion policy and shed light on the use of the repayable instruments within public interventions, while providing, for the first time, a critical analysis of the JESSICA sustainable funding model from the holistic perspective which is especially relevant for supporting sustainable urban development. Financial Engineering in Sustainable Funding of Urban Development in the EU provides policy-significant findings that are important for EU cohesion policy in the field of repayable assistance to be reinvested in the long term in urban and regional transformation. Includes an in-depth exploration of the particular aspects of EU cohesion policy Provides theoretical discussion and empirics illustrated by figures and maps. 
Contributors are experts, representing policy-oriented and academic research.},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, EU, EU funds, financial engineering, JESSICA, Poland, urban development, urban policy, urban regeneration},
	isbn = {9783110762198},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110762198},
	url = {https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110762198/html$\#$overview},
	author = {Piotr Idczak and Ida Musia{\l}kowska}
}
@article {4326,
	title = {Spatial Distribution of JESSICA  Funding Across Polish Municipalities. Perspective of Territorial Dimension  of EU Cohesion Policy},
	journal = {Studia Regionalne i Lokalne},
	year = {2021},
	month = {10/2021},
	pages = {7-20},
	chapter = {7},
	abstract = {The JESSICA initiative was set up to provide a more sustainable and efficient response to the needs of urban areas, as compared to non-repayable grants. Anchored in the literature on place-based policy and territorial cohesion, this paper addresses the question how the JESSICA funds were allocated among Polish cities {\textendash} whether, intuitively, only to key urban centres, or to smaller cities as well. The results illustrate that the repayable assistance of JESSICA was dispersed throughout the regions, although the degree of dispersion remains mixed across them. Almost half of the JESSICA funds was transferred to small and medium-sized cities. It was also found that the bulk of the assistance went to the projects that were implemented in cities situated within metropolitan areas of the regional capital cities.},
	keywords = {cities, cohesion policy, JESSICA initiative, Poland, standard deviational ellipse, territorial cohesion},
	doi = {10.7366/1509499538501},
	url = {https://studreg.uw.edu.pl/dane/web_sril_files/1746/2021_3_idczak_mrozik.pdf},
	author = {Piotr Idczak and Karol Mrozik and Ida Musia{\l}kowska}
}
@inbook {4273,
	title = {JESSICA Initiative to Support Sustainable Urban Development Projects in Poland},
	booktitle = {Successes \& Failures in EU Cohesion Policy: An Introduction to EU cohesion policy in Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe},
	year = {2020},
	pages = {173{\textendash}204},
	publisher = {De Gruyter},
	organization = {De Gruyter},
	address = {Warsaw/Berlin},
	abstract = {<p style="text-align: justify;">The JESSICA initiative has been set up to respond to development needs of urban areas, which are of key importance for stimulation of sustainable economic growth. It is supposed to provide a more efficient alternative to the traditional EU grants for the implementation of developmental projects. The funding available under the JESSICA framework relies on a repayable and recyclable basis. This means that it not only offers revolving funds, increasing financing capacity of EU cohesion policy, but also creates scope for cooperation between public authorities, financial institutions, and private investors to support implementation of this policy. Since JESSICA supports projects being part of an integrated plan for sustainable urban development, its primary challenge is to combine the objectives focused on urban sustainability and policy intervention with revolving financial models that assume, in principle, the long-term viability of projects. However, taking into particular consideration the needs of urban areas and the EU cohesion policy objective on the one hand, and the organisation and operation of financing engineering instruments on the other, JESSICA seems to be a very ambitious undertaking. The evaluations carried out, up to now, have been mainly focused on its legal and institutional framework, or limited to some selected project. Our study concerns the assessment of all projects implemented within the framework of the JESSICA initiative in five Polish regions, namely: Pomorskie, Mazowieckie, {\'S}l{\k a}skie, Wielkopolskie and Zachodniopomorskie, in the years between 2007-2015. To do so, we designed a methodological approach for assessing the extent to which projects implemented under the JESSICA initiative have contributed to achieving its fundamental assumptions. Subsequently, we made an assessment of the results of JESSICA through the conceptual lens of sustainable urban development. The main findings show that the range of achieving the assumptions of the JESSICA funding model by projects diverges widely. Many projects were quite well adjusted to the requirements but there were also projects that fulfilled them to a very limited extent.</p>},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, JESSICA, revenue-generating projects, revolving instruments, sustainable urban development},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.1515/9788395720451-009},
	author = {Ida Musia{\l}kowska and Piotr Idczak}
}
@book {4280,
	title = {Successes \& Failures in EU Cohesion Policy: An Introduction to EU cohesion policy in Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe},
	year = {2020},
	pages = {208},
	publisher = {De Gruyter},
	organization = {De Gruyter},
	address = {Berlin/Warsaw},
	abstract = {Regions in the EU{\textquoteright}s Eastern and Southern peripheries tend to perform badly across many rankings from economic development, to quality of government,social justice and innovation potential, despite the fact that the vast majorityof EU structural funding has been spent in these countries. However, these countries followed different development trajectories and reacted differently to the economic crisis. Some of them still struggle, others thrive, others, afteryears of structural transformation, are stuck in a middle-income trap.Successes and failures as a result of EU cohesion implementation are avaluable source of feedback for future plans. Southern part of the EU, and Central and Eastern Europe provide an excellent opportunity to evaluatethem, The whole implementation exercise is sometimes challenging to accomplish, as both the public and private sectors have low absorption capacity. In contrast, positive experiences also emerged. Regions in Central and Eastern European countries witnessed improvements in the form of change in GDP per capita, benchmarked against the EU average during theyears 2008-2015, while Southern Europe improved similarly between 2000-2008. In this volume, the authors cover a variety of aforementioned problems and experiences of either all member states, with special attention to peripheral countries, or to sectoral or regional problems in selected countries. The book begins with an overview of the issues of economic convergence and quality of life in all member states. It also addresses political aspects of EU cohesion policy, including involvement of civil society into this public policy, as well as relationships between cohesion policy support and EU identification. The final section discusses an important novelty in the framework of EU cohesion policy, namely the JESSICA initiative, that is, an instrument offering repayable and recyclable funding targeted at economically-viable and sustainable urban development projects. Authors are engaged in research on EU cohesion policy and represent severaldisciplines: economics, political and social sciences.},
	keywords = {Central and Eastern Europe, cohesion policy, convergence, EU funds, European Union, regeneration, Southern Europe},
	issn = {978-83-957204-4-4},
	doi = {10.1515/9788395720451},
	url = {https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/580682?language=en},
	author = {Ida Musia{\l}kowska and Piotr Idczak and Oto Potluka}
}
@article {4012,
	title = {European Union Values  in the Cohesion Policy},
	journal = {The Review of European Affairs},
	volume = {1},
	year = {2017},
	month = {12/2017},
	pages = {141-151},
	abstract = {he European Union (EU) has been facing multiple crises recently, e.g. migratory crisis, structural  crisis  etc.  Thus,  the  process  of  European  integration  is  at  a  crossroads.  In  such  turbulent  times the questions of common values, standards and their place in the policies have arisen. In the paper, the main focus is put on the analysis of the place of EU values in the Cohesion Policy and impact of current socio-economic challenges on its future shape. The paper is of analytical 
character and it is based on secondary data, legislation and track of the integration process based on press-releases complemented by author{\textquoteright}s participation in the process of implementation of the policy in Poland (advisory role to the executive bodies, expertise etc.). Therefore, this article may be treated as a policy-debate paper.},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, European Union values, regions, socio-economic situation},
	issn = {2544-6703},
	url = {http://www.pecsa.edu.pl/sites/default/files/docs/Volume\%201\%20Issue\%201.pdf},
	author = {Ida Musia{\l}kowska}
}
@article {2879,
	title = {Assessment of the System of Project Selection under the Cohesion Policy "The Case of the Wielkopolska Region"},
	journal = {Evalua{\v c}n{\'\i} teorie a praxe},
	volume = {2014},
	year = {2014},
	pages = {69-98},
	chapter = {69},
	abstract = {<p>The current year 2014 allows/has allowed for the first attempts to evaluate the operations, organization and implementation of the Cohesion Policy 2007-2013. The authors have analysed one of the elements that might have an impact on the results obtained under the regional operational programme in the Wielkopolska region in Poland, namely the modes of\&nbsp;the\&nbsp;selection of projects. This element of the whole cycle of projects is an\&nbsp;under-researched subject of scientific analyses even though the project selection itself has been deeply examined by (various) control institutions (the European Court of Auditors, Supreme Audit Offices etc.). The authors use evaluation concepts and a strategic management lens, and formulate five research questions on: the conditions necessary for the transparency of project selection, the main factors determining the choice of the adopted selection mode, the impact of the selection mode on the results, the quality of the work of experts, and the efficiency of the appeal procedures for\&nbsp;beneficiaries {\textendash} trying to answer all these questions in the subsequent sections of the article. The methods used comprise analyses of legislation, reports, primary data and in-depth-interviews with the stakeholders. The\&nbsp;research has also practical implications and can be a valuable case-study for policy-makers.</p>},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, EU funds, evaluation, Poland, selection of projects, Wielkopolska region, Wielkopolska Regional Operational Programme},
	issn = {2336-114X},
	url = {https://www.evaltep.cz/inpage/assessment-wielkopolska/},
	author = {Piotr Idczak and Ida Musia{\l}kowska}
}
@article {419,
	title = {Research and development policy and cohesion policy in the new member states of the European Union },
	journal = {Studia Regionalia KPKZ PAN},
	volume = {27},
	year = {2010},
	month = {2010},
	chapter = {60},
	keywords = {cohesion policy, EU, new Member States, research and development policy},
	isbn = {978-83-89693-28-0},
	url = {http://www.kpzk.pan.pl/index.php/publications-in-english/94-vol-27-part-i-ii},
	author = {Ida Musia{\l}kowska}
}
