diff --git a/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/PrepareProjectTest.java b/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/PrepareProjectTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..fa9e32fd57
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/PrepareProjectTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+
+package eu.dnetlib.dhp.actionmanager.project;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
+import eu.dnetlib.dhp.actionmanager.project.csvutils.CSVProgramme;
+import eu.dnetlib.dhp.actionmanager.project.csvutils.CSVProject;
+import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
+import org.apache.spark.SparkConf;
+import org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaRDD;
+import org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaSparkContext;
+import org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset;
+import org.apache.spark.sql.Encoders;
+import org.apache.spark.sql.SparkSession;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.AfterAll;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeAll;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+import org.slf4j.Logger;
+import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
+import java.nio.file.Path;
+
+public class PrepareProjectTest {
+
+	private static final ObjectMapper OBJECT_MAPPER = new ObjectMapper();
+
+	private static final ClassLoader cl = PrepareProjectTest.class
+		.getClassLoader();
+
+	private static SparkSession spark;
+
+	private static Path workingDir;
+	private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory
+		.getLogger(PrepareProjectTest.class);
+
+	@BeforeAll
+	public static void beforeAll() throws IOException {
+		workingDir = Files
+			.createTempDirectory(PrepareProjectTest.class.getSimpleName());
+		log.info("using work dir {}", workingDir);
+
+		SparkConf conf = new SparkConf();
+		conf.setAppName(PrepareProjectTest.class.getSimpleName());
+
+		conf.setMaster("local[*]");
+		conf.set("spark.driver.host", "localhost");
+		conf.set("hive.metastore.local", "true");
+		conf.set("spark.ui.enabled", "false");
+		conf.set("spark.sql.warehouse.dir", workingDir.toString());
+		conf.set("hive.metastore.warehouse.dir", workingDir.resolve("warehouse").toString());
+
+		spark = SparkSession
+			.builder()
+			.appName(PrepareProjectTest.class.getSimpleName())
+			.config(conf)
+			.getOrCreate();
+	}
+
+	@AfterAll
+	public static void afterAll() throws IOException {
+		FileUtils.deleteDirectory(workingDir.toFile());
+		spark.stop();
+	}
+
+	@Test
+	public void numberDistinctProgrammeTest() throws Exception {
+		PrepareProjects
+			.main(
+				new String[] {
+					"-isSparkSessionManaged",
+					Boolean.FALSE.toString(),
+					"-projectPath",
+					getClass().getResource("/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/projects_subset.json").getPath(),
+					"-outputPath",
+					workingDir.toString() + "/preparedProjects"
+				});
+
+		final JavaSparkContext sc = new JavaSparkContext(spark.sparkContext());
+
+		JavaRDD<CSVProject> tmp = sc
+			.textFile(workingDir.toString() + "/preparedProjects")
+			.map(item -> OBJECT_MAPPER.readValue(item, CSVProject.class));
+
+		Assertions.assertEquals(20, tmp.count());
+
+		Dataset<CSVProject> verificationDataset = spark.createDataset(tmp.rdd(), Encoders.bean(CSVProject.class));
+
+		Assertions.assertEquals(0, verificationDataset.filter("length(id) = 0").count());
+		Assertions.assertEquals(0, verificationDataset.filter("length(programme) = 0").count());
+	}
+
+}
diff --git a/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/preparedProgramme_whole.json.gz b/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/preparedProgramme_whole.json.gz
similarity index 100%
rename from dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/preparedProgramme_whole.json.gz
rename to dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/preparedProgramme_whole.json.gz
diff --git a/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/projects_subset.json b/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/prepared_projects.json
similarity index 100%
rename from dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/projects_subset.json
rename to dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/prepared_projects.json
diff --git a/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/projects_subset.json b/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/projects_subset.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e69de29bb2
diff --git a/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/whole_programme.json.gz b/dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/whole_programme.json.gz
similarity index 100%
rename from dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/whole_programme.json.gz
rename to dhp-workflows/dhp-aggregation/src/test/resources/eu/dnetlib/dhp/actionmanager/project/whole_programme.json.gz