GENERAL INFORMATION
Title of the dataset: VEC characteristics of European regions resilience towards development shock of the Russia’s aggression against Ukraine
Authors: Paweł Churski, Czesław Adamiak, Anna Dubownik, Maciej Pietrzykowski, Barbara Szyda
Contact: Czesław Adamiak (czeslaw.adamiak@umk.pl)
Project title: Regional policy in Europe in conditions of development shocks – challenges of regional development resulting from the socio-economic consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine
Project funding: National Science Centre Poland 2023/49/B/HS5/00256
Project webpage: https://recoru.web.amu.edu.pl/
METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION
The dataset provides a quantitative description of regional disparities in vulnerability to development shocks, exposure to the concrete event of war in Ukraine, and the effects of the war. This approach integrates three elements, which we refer to as the VEC framework (vulnerability, exposure, and consequences). Vulnerability is understood as the internal regional characteristics that shape regions' general susceptibility to crises. Exposure is defined as the level to which a region is exposed to the transmission of a concrete shock, usually defined by its external relations with the source of the shock. Consequences are observed effects of the shock from its beginning to the time of data collection.
The choice of indicators departs from literature review and research group discussions which resulted in the definition of 13 theoretical dimensions of regional vulnerability (economic, social, institutional and infrastructural-environmental dimensions), exposure to war in Ukraine (geographic proximity, and connections to Ukraine and Russia in the fields of migration and social ties, international trade, global value chains, tourism, and energy market), and consequences of war (social, economic and institutional). 74 indicators were selected that covered all theoretical dimensions.
Data is derived primarily from Eurostat (56 variables), as well as national census results aggregated in Eurostat CensusHub, geographic data published by Eurostat's GISCO and ESPON, survey data and analysis, e.g., by Eurobarometer, and big data sources such as the GDELT global news database.
Most indicators were measured at the NUTS-2 regional level (according to 2021 revision of NUTS). Some of them, however, were obtained only for countries due to a lack of data for regions. EU outermost territories, Ceuta and Melilla are excluded from the dataset. In total as they frequently appear as outliers in the data and are not essential for the topic of the study, the dataset includes 232 NUTS-2 units of 27 European Union countries.
Vulnerability and exposure indicators were measured for 2021, while consequences variables were defined as a change between 2021 and the last available data at the time of data collection (April 2026).
FILES:
variables-metadata.xlsx - variables description, including variable names, sources and calculation details.
data_nuts2.xlsx – NUTS-2-level data.
data_countries.xlsx – country-level data.
summary_nuts2.xlsx – summary statistics for NUTS-2-level data.
summary_countries.xlsx – summary statistics for country-level data.
(2026-05)
