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Documented examples

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 863 of 863 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

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7 of 863 deliveries

Coordination

2 deliveries linked to Public-private collaboration, University-industry collaboration.

Slovakiasince 2016still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

D4/R7 Bratislava bypass PPP

Slovakia built the D4 motorway and R7 expressway around Bratislava, 59.0 km at EUR 1,670 million, as a public-private partnership between 2016 and 2021, the only PPP among the major road projects the Supreme Audit Office listed in its 2025 audit of road investment.

59 km, length of the d4/r7 ppp project, 2021. 1,670 EUR million, cost of the d4/r7 ppp project as listed by the audit office, 2025. Najvyลกลกรญ kontrolnรฝ รบrad Slovenskej republiky (NKรš SR), Sprรกva o vรฝsledku kontroly: Investiฤnรฉ projekty v cestnej doprave (2025), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The transport ministry procured the Bratislava bypass as one availability-payment concession covering design, construction, financing and decades of operation, so a single private partner delivered 59 km at once rather than in budget-limited sections.

Preconditions

  • A ministry able to procure and supervise a EUR 1.7 billion concession
  • International lenders and sponsors willing to finance it
  • Budget room for decades of availability payments

Where else it has been used: The Czech D4 (cze-d4-ppp) and Latvia's ฤถekava bypass (lva-kekava-ppp) used the same model later and at smaller scale.

Limits: The figures are one row of a table on printed page 12 of the audit office's PDF, which lists the period 2016 to 2021, 59.0 km, EUR 1,670.00 million and 'PPP' as the funding source; the audit is about road investment generally and does not evaluate the PPP itself, its cost against a public alternative or its schedule against plan. The table gives no definition of the cost (construction cost, capital value or total availability payments), so the EUR 1,670 million cannot be compared with the other rows without that caveat. The opening dates of the sections are not on this page; 2021 is the end of the period the table gives. The same table shows every other major road project financed from EU or state funds, so the record documents one delivered PPP, not a programme, and this source says nothing about Slovakia's earlier PPP attempts.

Slovakiasince 2024delivered and closedbears on University-industry collaboration

Matching grants for research income from the private sector

Slovakia's Research and Innovation Authority, under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, contracted 44 matching grants worth 30.8 million euros in 2024 and 2025 to universities and public research organisations as a reward for the research and development they had already done with the private sector, 21 of them, worth 24.2 million euros, to universities.

30,778,076 euros, matching grant funds contracted, rounds one and two (summed from the published recipient lists), 2024-2025. 44 contracts, matching grant contracts signed, rounds one and two, 2024-2025. Vyskumna a inovacna autorita (VAIA), call 09I02-03-V02 'Matching granty ku zdrojom ziskanym od sukromneho sektora v ramci vyskumnej spoluprace', call page and recipient lists as of 4 September 2024 and 27 June 2025, retrieved 2026-10-17.

The move, and what it needed

The research and innovation authority paid each university and public research organisation a grant sized by the research income it had already earned from private firms, so institutions that had sold research to industry received equipment money that the others did not.

Preconditions

  • Institutions able to document and certify their private research income for past years
  • A one-off pool of recovery money that could be spent on equipment rather than salaries
  • A national agency able to contract dozens of public research bodies in two rounds

Limits: The call page gives the allocation (32,473,000 euros) and the number of applications (15 in round one, 31 in round two) but no total of awards: 44 contracts and 30.8 million euros are our sums of the two recipient spreadsheets linked from that page (13 contracts and 17.2 million euros in round one, 31 contracts and 13.6 million euros in round two), and the 21 university contracts are those whose recipient name contains 'univerzita'; the rest went to Slovak Academy of Sciences institutes and state research centres. Contracted sums are not disbursed sums. The grant is a reward for collaboration that already happened, matched against private research income for periods the project titles give as 2020 to 2023, and the money buys research equipment, so the record shows how much contract and joint research with firms the public research system had, not new collaboration the grant created. The lists do not name the firms or say how much income each institution earned, and the matching ratio is set in the call text, not on the page. The money is European Union Recovery and Resilience Facility funding, run once through a closed call, so this is a one-off delivery rather than a standing programme. The University of Zilina, the Slovak University of Technology and the Technical University of Kosice took 21.3 million euros between them, so the volume is concentrated in a few technical universities.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Slovakiasince 2024still operatingbears on Adult learning participation

Zruฤnosti pre trh prรกce, retraining and training contributions of the labour offices

Slovakia's Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family enrolled 17,008 clients in its national project 'Zruฤnosti pre trh prรกce' in 2025 and paid training contributions for 16,853 of them, 14.56 million euros in all, with 9,714 registered jobseekers starting retraining courses against 5,904 in 2024.

17,008 clients, clients enrolled in the national project zruฤnosti pre trh prรกce, 2025. 9,714 jobseekers, registered jobseekers who started retraining under the project, 2025. รšstredie prรกce, sociรกlnych vecรญ a rodiny (Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family), Vyhodnotenie aktรญvnych opatrenรญ na trhu prรกce za rok 2025, section 6.4, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

Labour offices let registered jobseekers pick an accredited course and provider themselves, approve a contract, and reimburse the fee and travel costs once the course is completed.

Preconditions

  • A market of accredited adult training providers across regions
  • Labour offices with case workers able to assess applications individually
  • EU co-financing to pay course fees in full

Where else it has been used: The demand-led design resembles voucher systems such as hrv-vauceri, with the difference that the Slovak office pays after completion rather than issuing a voucher up front.

Limits: The office evaluates its own project, in a 76-page PDF (printed pages 36 to 37, PDF page 37). The 17,008 mixes three activities, retraining of registered jobseekers, skills for young people not in employment or training, and training of registered job applicants (zรกujemcovia o zamestnanie), who may be in work, and the client counts are enrolments and payments, not completions; the retraining contributions are paid after a course ends, so some 2025 payments relate to agreements from 2024. The client chooses the course and provider from the open market and the office only reimburses it, so course quality is not controlled by the office. The six-month placement rate the office reports (53.83 percent for retrained jobseekers) is not a measured effect, since there is no comparison group. The project began in April 2024, so the 2024 comparison covers only part of a year; earlier demand-led retraining schemes of the labour offices (known as REPAS+ and KOMPAS+) are not covered in this report and their scale was not checked.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Firms through regulatory sandboxes.

Slovakiasince 2022still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes

Narodna banka Slovenska regulatory sandbox

Slovakia's central bank opened its regulatory sandbox on 1 January 2022 and lists one former participant, Crowdberry Investment Platform, which entered on 22 November 2023, tested an electronic bulletin board for secondary trading of crowdfunded securities with selected clients from 15 December 2024 to 18 April 2025, and exited on 15 May 2025.

1 firms, firms listed as former participants (completed) of the regulatory sandbox, 2025-05-15. Narodna banka Slovenska, Regulatory sandbox page, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The central bank admits firms year-round into a preparation phase of up to six months of consultations and a testing phase of up to six months on real clients under a test plan, ending with a final report and meeting.

Preconditions

  • A published methodology for entry criteria
  • Staff in a fintech department to run long consultations
  • Firms with a product that needs real-client testing, which in a small market are few

Limits: The page lists former participants only and gives no count of current participants or applications, so admissions in progress are unknown; one completion in nearly four years of operation is the figure the page supports. The sandbox waives no regulatory requirement: the page says requirements cannot be waived, so it is supervised testing with consultation. The bank states that its innovation hub handles far more interactions than the sandbox, which reflects the design rather than a measured failure. The regulator reports on its own programme.

Adaptability

2 deliveries linked to Institutional responsiveness, Disaster preparedness and recovery.

Slovakiasince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Prvรก pomoc (First Aid) job retention scheme, 2020 to 2022

Slovakia's government approved the labour ministry's job retention scheme on 31 March 2020, labour offices began accepting applications on 6 April with support backdated to 13 March, and over two years the scheme paid almost EUR 2.5 billion to 176,000 employers and self-employed people, 5.7 million monthly payments covering more than 770,000 employees.

6 days, days from government approval to the first applications, 2020-04-06. 2.5 EUR billion, first aid support paid over the life of the scheme (almost), 2022-02-28. Ministerstvo prรกce, sociรกlnych vecรญ a rodiny SR, Prvรก pomoc (pomahameludom.sk), closing summary, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The labour ministry designed a state aid scheme paid through the network of labour offices, with separate measures for closed businesses, firms with falling revenue and the self-employed, and the government approved it so offices could take applications within a week.

Preconditions

  • Labour offices that already contracted with employers for active labour market measures
  • European Social Fund money that could be reallocated to the scheme
  • EU state aid temporary framework rules allowing wage subsidies

Where else it has been used: The Czech Antivirus (cze-antivirus) was approved the same day with a similar design; both were later criticised for poor targeting.

Limits: The page is the labour ministry's own scheme site and its closing summary is promotional: it quotes the minister calling the ministry the most successful state body at delivering aid, and cites a supportive analysis by the ministry's own Institute of Social Policy. The figures are rounded ('almost 2.5 billion', 'more than 770 thousand') and the page has no publication date; the eligible period it states runs from 13 March 2020 to 28 February 2022. The six days are our arithmetic from the two dates on the page; the record does not show how long the first payments took after applications opened, and this record has not read any audit of the scheme. Employees counted are those in supported firms, not jobs shown to have been saved, and nearly half of the money went to micro-enterprises, per the institute's director quoted on the page.

Slovakiasince 2019delivered and closedbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Intervention equipment for municipal volunteer fire brigades, Operational Programme Quality of Environment

Slovakia's Ministry of Interior, as intermediate body for the Operational Programme Quality of Environment, improved the intervention equipment of 371 bodies for climate-related emergencies by 2022, mainly municipal volunteer fire brigades, against an original target of 20.

371 bodies, bodies with improved intervention equipment (implemented value), 2022. 20 bodies, original target for the same output indicator, 2016 to 2020 programme target. European Commission, ESIF 2014-2020 programme-specific achievements (Cohesion Open Data), indicator O0026 of Slovakia's Operational Programme Quality of Environment, retrieved 2026-10-16.

The move, and what it needed

The Ministry of Interior, acting as intermediate body for an EU environmental programme, used the programme's climate-adaptation axis to equip municipal volunteer fire brigades directly, turning a target sized for national and regional services into a nationwide local roll-out.

Preconditions

  • A dense network of municipal volunteer fire brigades already registered with the state fire service
  • An EU cohesion programme with a risk-prevention axis that allowed equipment for emergency response
  • A ministry able to run one national project on behalf of hundreds of municipalities

Limits: The figure is the managing authority's own report to the European Commission, republished as open data, so the programme reports on itself. It counts bodies that received equipment, not the equipment's quantity, condition, use in real incidents or any change in response times; the same programme's result indicator for intervention duration reports 108 minutes in every year from 2016 to 2022 against an 87 minute target. The managing authority's note says 370 of the 371 operations were only partially realised at the 2022 report, and that the ITMS2014+ monitoring system had reported 410 in error. The scale grew because a local project was added after the original target of 20 national and regional bodies, so the overshoot reflects a change of design rather than outperformance. The programme was EU co-financed; the record does not show what national funding sustains the equipment after 2023. A Supreme Audit Office report on crisis management for 2020 to 2022 found no functioning shelter system and civil-protection stocks that were run down, so this record is evidence for local response equipment and not for civil protection as a whole.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Slovakiasince 2015still operatingbears on Large project delivery

Decommissioning of the Bohunice V1 nuclear power plant, and its four-year slip

Slovakia's state decommissioning company JAVYS, which the European Court of Auditors reported in 2016 as holding the Bohunice V1 decommissioning end date at 2025 with a cost estimate of 1,239 million euros, reported in its 2025 annual report that the final decontamination and demolition contract signed on 18 December 2024 runs 60 months, putting the end of decommissioning at the end of 2029, at a total estimated cost of 1,220 million euros, with 66 decommissioning projects completed by 31 December 2025.

1,220 million euros, total estimated cost of decommissioning bohunice v1, 2025-12-31. 2029 year, expected year of completion of the whole v1 decommissioning process, against 2025 in the plan the eca reviewed in 2016, 2025-12-31. JAVYS, a.s. (Jadrovรก a vyraฤovacia spoloฤnosลฅ, state-owned), Vรฝroฤnรก sprรกva 2025 (annual report 2025), section on V1 decommissioning, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

A state company created to decommission shut-down reactors runs dozens of EU-funded projects under a detailed decommissioning plan monitored by the European Commission and the EBRD, and reschedules the end date when the final demolition contract is procured.

Preconditions

  • A dedicated state decommissioning company with its own nuclear licences
  • EU accession commitments that fund most of the cost through a ring-fenced programme
  • A regulator able to license each decommissioning stage separately

Where else it has been used: Lithuania's Ignalina decommissioning, funded under the same EU arrangement, slipped much further (ltu-ignalina-decommissioning).

Limits: JAVYS reports on its own programme; the figures are in a PDF, the 2029 end date and the 60-month contract of 18 December 2024 on PDF page 17, the 1,220 million euro estimate and the 735 million EU share on PDF page 19, and the 66 completed projects on PDF page 20. The baseline comes from a different publisher: the European Court of Auditors' Special Report 22/2016 (https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR16_22/SR_NUCLEAR_DECOMMISSIONING_EN.pdf) says the Slovak end date 'has remained at 2025' (paragraph 64, PDF page 40) and gives estimated costs of 1,146 million euros in 2011 and 1,239 million in 2015 (Table 8, PDF page 46). The two cost figures are not on the same basis, so the record does not claim the cost fell; it claims cost was held roughly flat while completion slipped about four years. Decommissioning is a stretch for 'major public infrastructure projects': it is a large state engineering programme that builds waste facilities and demolishes a plant rather than a new asset, and it is mostly paid for by the EU (735 million euros of the 1,220 million, through the EBRD-managed BIDSF fund and the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency). The started year is 2015, the start of the second decommissioning stage under the nuclear regulator's licence of 23 December 2014; the first stage began earlier. Whether the 2029 date holds is not known.