European Structural Fund Areas

European Structural Funds are a series of financial tools set up with the explicit purpose of reducing regional disparities across the EU in terms of income, wealth and opportunity. Scotland’s Structural Fund Programmes for 2014-2020 consists of 2 programme areas: Highlands and Islands (with a GDP between 75% and 90% of the EU average), and the rest of Scotland which is made up of the other three NUTS II (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics3) regions (North Eastern Scotland, Eastern Scotland and South Western Scotland) all of whom have a GDP above 90% of the EU average. The Highlands and Islands has been designated as a transition region and the rest of Scotland as a more developed region. The categorisation of the two areas has an impact on the type of projects that the funds can be used to support.

欧洲结构基金是一系列旨在显著缩小欧盟内部地区间收入、财富和机会差距的金融工具。苏格兰2014-2020年结构基金计划包括两大项目领域：高地及群岛（其国内生产总值介于欧盟平均水平的75%至90%之间），以及苏格兰的其他三个NUTS II（统计数据地域单位命名法3）区域（东北苏格兰、东苏格兰和西南苏格兰），这些区域的国内生产总值均超过欧盟平均水平的90%。高地及群岛已被指定为过渡区域，而苏格兰的其他区域则被视为较为发达的地区。这两个区域的分类对可用于支持的项目的类型产生了影响。