Shared Prosperity Fund: lessons from EU funding for local and regional economic development

While ‘levelling up’ is the latest political mantra, it is still unclear how and in what ways the Shared Prosperity Fund will be implemented across the country, writes Benito Giordano. He outlines several lessons for how the Fund – which will replace the funding received from the EU’s Regional Policy – could operate and warns of the risk that party political considerations could exacerbate regional disparities rather than reduce them.