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European Commission - Specific RTD programme in the field of Information Technologies
"Supporting the growth and the spread of the Information Society"
Edition September 1997
Updated for the March 1998 Call
This document introduces procedures and rules for preparing R & D proposals under the one-step evaluation process against tasks in the R&D Areas of the domains:
A number of Specific Information Documents are available for proposals for
Proposers who are new to Esprit are advised to refer first to the Introduction for Proposers and the Workprogramme of Esprit.
All documents are available on request at the IT Programme Office
Fax: +32 2 6637200 E-mail: IT-Help@dg3eval.cec.be
or at the Webpage
/esprit/home.html
Proposals for R&D tasks are the main type of proposals in the Esprit programme. They should aim at covering technical work described in the tasks of the Work programme. In addition proposals against themes target at bringing together a range of different technical contributions for development of solutions for that theme. For the latter please refer to the Specific Information Document on R&D for Themes, which describe the objectives in more detail.
The objective of the implementation of R&D tasks in Esprit is:
"to provide and demonstrate the technological building blocks for information society applications and for application in industry to strengthen the competitiveness of all EU industry. The tasks are described in the 1998 Esprit Work programme."
In general, R&D work should be well-focused, industrially relevant - which could include pre-normative work -, innovative and relevant at a European level.
In support of R&D activities and their exploitation, the Esprit programme stimulates demonstration projects, validation and integration experiments and other technology dissemination and awareness activities, in combination with the R&D or in separate activities.
Proposals prepared following this document should fit within the overall scope of the IT programme, relate to the R&D tasks and preparatory tasks that are described in the relevant Call published in the Official Journal Calls and fall within the topics as described in 1.3.
This document is meant for Calls for proposals which will be evaluated in one step.
Hereunder a short description is given of the topics which are covered by this document. Further details are given in the Esprit Work programme.
Software (ST) is now not only a pervasive feature of "classical" information processing and control systems of all types, but also a key feature of a rapidly growing range of products and services from all sectors of European economic activity. For the majority of IT-based systems, software is the major cost component and increasingly the source of added value. Against this background the objective of R&D in the domain is to ensure that Europe's professional software developers in all sectors of the economy continue to have the skills, capabilities and key technologies that are needed to provide software intensive systems of outstanding quality and relevance and to respond in a timely manner to the constraints and opportunities of the market.
Four ST R&D areas with various tasks are described in the Esprit Work programme: Software Intensive Systems Engineering; Emerging Software Technologies; Distributed Systems and Database Technologies; Human-Centered Interfaces.
In the Multimedia Systems (MS) domain only the Activity 1 (Multimedia systems Pilots) is evaluated under the one-step systems and covered by this Specific Document. These R&D pilots aim at integrating advanced technologies and standards into multimedia systems solutions with a view to stimulating their uptake in the information infrastructure.
R&D in theOpen Microprocessors Initiative (OMI) addresses the design and development of microprocessor and micro-controller based systems, hardware and software, with emphasis on embedded applications. It supports innovation in the design of systems that address new applications or provide new functionality.
For OMI two R&D areas with tasks are described in the Esprit Work programme: Systems Technology; Systems Integration and Applications.
The aim of R&D in the Technologies for Business Processes (TBP) domain is to support innovation in the way European enterprises do business in order to compete effectively world wide. Successful business innovation is based on the catalysing and enabling combination of information technologies, business processes, and human resources in an appropriate environment.
The domain includes the R&D area: Business Innovation Tools and the Preparatory Activity: Innovation in Business Pilots (Activity 7.1) to which this document refers.
The goal of R&D in the domain Integration in Manufacturing (IiM) is, through the development of new IT solutions, to accelerate and enhance the ability of European manufacturing industry to capitalise on the emergence of a powerful global Information Infrastructure and to integrate the various strands of work as part of a strategic initiative for the European manufacturing industries. The R&D tasks will provide an information infrastructure which enables the transition from traditional engineering to a concurrent engineering environment.
The R&D areas in the IiM domain are: IT for Product and Process Data Modelling for Design and Manufacturing; Management Tools for the Agile Enterprise; Intelligent Production Systems and Equipment; Advanced Controls for Manufacturing and Production.
Proposed projects should work towards concrete results and must from the outset have clear routes to exploitation. Consortia should be compact and comprise the minimum number of partners necessary to execute the work. Unnecessary duplication of skills and activities should be avoided.
Applications to this call should be targeted R&D Proposals that comprise activities which sharply focus on the tasks described in the Work programme. Results should be commercially exploitable within a 3-5 year time frame. Proposers should clearly indicate the expected increment vis-à-vis the prevailing state-of-the-art and plans for commercial exploitation should be included in the proposal. Precise evaluation criteria are given in Section 3.3.
R&D work could be complemented by demonstration work, including trial deployment of systems in an industrial or commercial context. This could, if not the major part of the work, be presented together with the R&D in one proposal. Demonstration projects or trial applications can also be proposed separately in accordance with the guidelines presented in the Specific Documents for such proposals.
Similarly validation and integration experiments could be proposed following one of the schemes presented in Specific Documents for best practice proposals, e.g. ESSI or Best practice in TBP or IiM.
The Commission is also willing to contribute financially to other RTD support measures which can be proposed through the Programme's continuous submission procedures. Examples of this type include, amongst others, industrial working groups on topics of common interest insofar as they support the Esprit Work programme.
Proposers should prepare their proposals in accordance with the structural recommendations and evaluation criteria given in section 3 of this Specific Information Document. All the necessary administration forms required to submit a proposal are provided in the accompanying annexes or available on diskettes or on the Esprit Web pages.
The programme is open to all legal entities - i.e. people and organisations - established and carrying out RTD activities in the Member States of the European Union (industrial firms both large and small enterprises aimed at bringing products and services to the market - universities, higher education institutes, research organisations, etc.), and to the Joint Research Centre of the EC.
The group of proposers must contain at least two non-affiliated industrial participants from different member states or from one member state and one state associated and financially contributing to the Programme.
Participation in this programme, with financial contribution from the EU, is open to any legal entity established or carrying out RTD activities in a third country associated with and contributing financially to the implementation of this Programme.
These are currently: Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Legal entities established and carrying out RTD activities in other European countries or in countries who have concluded an S&T agreement with the EU (not financially contributing as described above) may participate in the programme on condition that:
the participation is in the interest of EU policies
the minimum stipulated number of legal entities from the EU and associated and financially contributing states are involved
These states are at printing date: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldavia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine, for which financial support by the EU, would in the case of acceptance of the proposal, normally be provided from funds other than the Esprit budget (an explicit request for such funding has to accompany the proposal).
Swiss, Australian, Canadian, South African and US organisations may participate under the above conditions, but without funding from the EC.
Legal entities established in states other than above listed, may participate on condition that:
the participation contributes effectively to the implementation of the Programme and provides mutual benefit to the interests of the EU and the state concerned
the minimum stipulated number of legal entities from the EU or associated and financially contributing states are involved
Organisations from Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Taiwan are not eligible for funding from the EU.
For organisations from other countries, financial support by the EU may be provided from funds other than the Esprit budget. An explicit request for such funding has to accompany the proposal.
International Organisations may participate on condition that:
the participation contributes effectively to the implementation of the Programme
the minimum stipulated number of legal entities from the EU or associated and financially contributing states are involved
Financial support from the Esprit Programme may be provided to international organisations situated in Europe on a case by case basis. An explicit request for such funding has to accompany the proposal.
If your proposal is successful in the evaluation and is selected for further negotiation, the Commission services will contact you for finalisation of the Project Programme and budgetary aspects.
The Project Officer assigned to be the responsible Commission official will provide you with the necessary documentation. The time needed in this phase depends on the complexity and evaluators' comments, but normally negotiations would take between 4 and 8 weeks if the work is well planned by the consortium.
The contract used for RTD actions is the standard Cost Reimbursement Contract for RTD as adapted to the Esprit programme.
The Commission has published an information booklet concerning the contracting conditions and the standard contract. You can obtain this booklet by request from :
**** e-mail: info-dg12@DG12.cec.be; fax: +32/2 295 82 20 ****
The contract provides explicit definitions of the partnership, the reporting obligations, the allowable costs and other financial conditions and the intellectual property right conditions. The contractual terms cannot be overruled by a consortium agreement, but the latter is recommended to provide further detail for the consortium on management and exploitation aspects. A model text is not available as it would depend very much on the specific situation of the consortium and work to be done under the associate contract.
The essential contractual/financial aspects for RTD contracts are the following:
The ESPRIT programme has procedures for both one and two step proposal submission and evaluation.
The submission and evaluation of the proposals as described in this information package will be done in a single step. Proposers must submit a full proposal before any evaluation takes place.
All proposals are evaluated by a panel of specially selected experts who are all bound by a confidentiality agreement and a code of conduct to avoid conflicts of interest. The evaluation will be exclusively based on the criteria set out in this section and will include assessment of the conformity of the work with the objectives and topics as stated in sections 1.1 and 1.3 of this Specific Information Document. The evaluation will be carried out under the responsibility and co-ordination of the Commission who will also interact with associate Programmes, e.g. Telematics Applications, ACTS, IMT.
When making a proposal, proposers should ask themselves the following questions:
The industrial relevance concerns the industrial context the proposal refers to, including market situation, needs and opportunities, technical state-of-the-art, and outstanding problems.
The objectives set the specific business and technical targets to be achieved by the proposers, whereas results define the concrete outcomes of the project. They should be innovative within their specific industrial context and provide benefits to a wider community than solely the proposers themselves.
The proposers include both individual proposers with their profiles and skills and their collaboration, where synergism among partners roles should appear. The soundness of the proposing group is not limited to the technical ability to perform the work, but includes aspects such as whether the work is in-line with the core business of proposers and whether business co-operation among participants is possible, credible and potentially successful.
Exploitation planning addresses the ways to achieve business objectives and provide the expected benefits during and after the project, whereas the work planning mainly concerns the identification of activities needed to achieve technical objectives and how they are co-ordinated with the business aspects.
Duration and resources concerns the staffing and time scale of activities identified in the work plan, whereas Project management focuses on how all the components above are managed to achieve success.
You should keep the above basic questions in mind while fulfilling the criteria detailed below. These criteria address the different aspects of a proposal in detail, and will be used by the expert evaluators to assess how it answers the basic questions above, while conforming with the scope and objectives of the Programme and showing the necessary European-level added value.
The criteria are designed to provide a fair, practical and consistent way of establishing to what extent proposals meet the goals of Esprit. The same set of criteria are used in all evaluations of Industrial R&D proposals.
In this section we will specify the recommended structure of, and the evaluation criteria which need to be satisfied by proposals.
You may submit proposals in any official language of the EC. However, it is appreciated to supply at least the summary in English as this will assist the speedy evaluation of proposals.
The description of the proposal structure given below, includes the criteria which have to be addressed in each of the sections. Certain criteria might be addressed in several sections. In such cases it is advised to refer in the relevant section to other places in the proposal which should be taken into account for assessment.
To complete Part 1 of the proposal you need to complete all the forms as given in Annex 1. You can obtain an electronic version of these forms on a diskette or download it from the Esprit Web pages. You are strongly recommended to use this method of data preparation and send the prepared diskette along with the proposal.
If you use the diskette or Web software to prepare a diskette, it will make it easier to fill in the data correctly. You can also make clear print-outs and it will help Commission services to enter your data quickly in their database. Of course, you may complete the paper forms, or the forms as they are provided by other programmes for RTD Project proposals, as these contain the same questions. In either case, please follow carefully the detailed instructions.
A complete Part 1 comprises :
Part 2 (your project description) should follow the recommended structural outline given below and provides all the information requested in not more than 30 pages. It should contain the following sections:
The description of these sections as well as the criteria used for assessment are given below. Evaluators will be asked to use these evaluation criteria to assess your proposal.
It goes without saying that evaluators are best helped in conducting their task if the information provided is concise and follows the recommended structure. Any irrelevant information should be avoided.
This section should be one page and should capture the essence of the proposal. It should summarise :
Note: This may be a copy of the 1000 character summary given in Part 1 (form 1a).
The rationale for the project should be clarified. In particular:
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
Important aspects are:
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
Address the relevance of the work to the competitivety of European industry and the interdependence with ongoing national, European or international programmes
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
Describe concisely the work planned to achieve the objectives of the project and include the following elements :
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
Outline the consortium's strategy for exploitation of the foreseen project results. It should include the exploitation plans of each of the partners in terms of :
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
The project management could form one of the work packages described under Project Work plan. Here one should address:
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
Present the rationale for the specific consortium and include:
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
The duration should be rationalised in relation to the objectives to be achieved. Estimates of the resources (manpower, equipment, etc.) should be presented for each partner for each work package and summarised at the project level.
Criteria to be addressed in this section are:
Each proposal must have a co-ordinating proposer, shortly co-ordinator, and this section of the information package is primarily directed to him. Normally, the co-ordinator will become the project co-ordinator, if the proposal is ultimately successful
Proposals should be submitted by you, co-ordinator, and you will be responsible for the liaison with the Commission.
You should submit one full original of each proposal plus 6 copies. This includes the forms and any useful information you choose to include, as long as it is relevant and limited in length.
It is your responsibility to assemble the proposal and you should submit it in one parcel.
It is also your responsibility to ensure that the proposal is delivered at the appropriate address before expiration of the deadline.
Your proposal should be sent by courier or postal services or delivered by hand to:
IT Programme OfficeYou must clearly mark on the parcel:
'Confidential: Proposal for the programme for RTD in Information Technologies (Esprit)'
Do not send proposals by fax or E-mail. Do not announce by fax or telephone that the proposals are in the mail. Faxes and telephone calls of this nature hinder the operation of the Commission in handling proposals, and will not be acknowledged. Until two weeks have elapsed, do not telephone or fax to enquire whether your proposal has been received.
Do not send or deliver your proposal to Esprit Commission Offices. This would create considerable delays. The only correct address is the one mentioned above.
The deadline for submission of the proposal is normally three months after the date of the Call for Proposals. The precise information is given in each call and should be carefully checked and adhered to. Proposals which are received after the deadline are not eligible.
In the case that an RTD proposal results from a SME Exploratory Award and the share in the proposed project costs of the SME proposers which received the award will be more than half of the total proposed cost, the RTD proposal can be submitted continuously, at any time.
You should include – in the parcel in which the proposal is delivered - a separate envelope containing the official 'Acknowledgement of Receipt' form as given in the Annex. On this you – the co-ordinator - must put your organisation's name and address and the title of the proposed project. This will ensure that the acknowledgement is returned to you correctly addressed.
Before it is returned, however, the Commission's reception staff will record the date of receipt and a unique reference number on the form. This reference number must be used in all subsequent correspondence relating to the proposal.
You should ensure that all proposers are given the proposal reference number and use it in all contacts with the Commission.
If you do not receive an 'Acknowledgement of receipt' within two weeks after the closing date of the Call, or the date of submission in case of a continuous Call, you should send a fax to the IT Programme office (Fax: + 32 2 6637200), indicating the acronym, title, domain, type of action and name of co-ordinator. You will receive an answer by fax within one week. You are strongly advised to retain proof of dispatch if the proposal is mailed or send by courier.
You are advised to submit proposalsonly once and not to send proposals which are essentially the same to different domains of the Esprit Programme or different programmes.
If the proposal is related to other Esprit domains or to other Community programmes you are advised to indicate this in the proposal itself or in an attached covering letter.
In any case you should give details of similar proposals on form 1a and sign the declaration.
The IT programme will take your comments in account and when appropriate involve the other domains or other programmes in the evaluation.
The IT programme reserves the right to redirect proposals to another domain than that indicated by the proposers or to another programme if EC staff or evaluators indicate that that would be more appropriate.
If there are further questions on the content of this Specific Information Document or if there is a need for further clarification in matters relating to the call, please contact:
| Esprit Information Desk European Commission DGIII/F N105 8/94 Rue de la Loi 200 B1049 Bruxelles, Belgium. |
telephone: +32.2.296.85.96 fax: +32.2.296.83.88 email: Esprit@dg3.cec.be |
| FORM 1a : PROPOSAL ADMINISTRATIVE SUMMARY | |||||||
|
Programme Name: Esprit |
Acronym:(max 10 chars) | ||||||
| Proposal Title: | |||||||
| Contact Person during the Proposal Evaluation | |||||||
| First Name: | Family Name: | ||||||
| Organisation Name: | |||||||
| Department Name: | |||||||
| Street Name: | Street No: | ||||||
| Post Code | City | Country: | |||||
| Telephone: | Fax: | ||||||
| E-mail: | |||||||
| Project synopsis (maximum 1000 characters) | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| Please sign your answer to the following question | |||||||
|
To the best of your knowledge, has this proposal, or a proposal that is similar in content, with your involvement or with the involvement of any of the partners in your consortium, been submitted to any other domain of Esprit or EU research programme? Yes / No If your answer is Yes, please give details (title of proposal, coordinator, name of programme, when submitted). Signature of Contact Person............................................................................................ | |||||||
| FORM 1B : PROPOSAL ADMINISTRATIVE SUMMARY (continued) | |||||||
| Proposal resources breakdown | |||||||
|
Programme Name: Esprit |
Action Type: PI | Acronym (max 10 char): | |||||
| Proposal Title (max 160 char): | |||||||
| Work Programme Tasks (c): | |||||||
| 1st Choice: |
2nd Choice: | 3rd Choice: | Duration (in months) | ||||
| List of participants | |||||||
|
No |
Organisation Names (d) |
Country (b) |
Admin.Role (b) (C/P/A) |
Org. Type (b) |
Funding Regime (e) (S/A) |
Global Costs in ECU (f) |
Effort in Person Years (g) |
| Total Costs: | Total Funding: | Total Person Years: | |||||
|
Please copy this form if more space is needed to list the participants. The participation in the Proposal of all the Partners and Associated Partners, and at the levels indicated above, must be formally sanctioned by representatives of the said organisations in letters accompanying the proposal. | |||||||
|
(b) A list of codes is supplied in this Annex. (c) See Work programme. (d) Short name for participants that use such a name in Form 2, and legal name if such a short name does not exist. (e) S for shared costs funded at 50% and A for Research Institutes or Universities with funding at 100% of additional costs. Research Institutes or Universities might be obliged to be funded at 100% of additional costs if they cannot demonstrate that an analytical budget accountancy system is used which can appropriately support the cost reporting required. (f) If funding regime A is chosen, the figure should only cover additional costs. Costs per partner are not required for short proposals. (g) In case of funding regime A, the figure should cover the whole effort (and not only the additional one). | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| FORM 2 : INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANT PROFILE | |||||||
| Programme Name: Esprit | Acronym: | ||||||
| Proposal Title: | |||||||
| Legal identification of the Participating Organisation | |||||||
| Short name (h): | Legal Status (i): | Organisation Type(l): | |||||
| Company Registration No: | VAT No: | ||||||
| Legal Name (j): | |||||||
| Department Name (if applicable): | |||||||
| Legal address of the Participating Organisation | |||||||
| Street Name: | Street Number: | ||||||
| Post Code: | City: | Country : | |||||
| Telephone No: | Fax No: | ||||||
| Organisation's role in the proposal | |||||||
| Administrative role (l) (C/P/A): | Functional role(l) (S/U): | Relevant industrial sector (l): | |||||
| Organisation details (if applicable) | |||||||
| Number of employees: | Is the participant an SME (Y/N)? (k) | ||||||
| Is your organisation affiliated to any other participant(s) in the proposal (Y/N)? (k): | |||||||
| If the answer is Y, please indicate the participant(s) name(s): | |||||||
|
(h) A Short name should be included only if it is in common use outside the organisation (max. 20 char.). (i) e.g. SA, Ltd, GmbH, AG, EEIG, etc. (j) The legal name is the one used in contracts. (k) For definition see glossary. (l) A list of codes is supplied in this Annex. | |||||||
| 1. Action Types | |||||
| PI | Industrial R&D Project | ||||
| 2. COUNTRY | |||||
| Code | Name | Code | Name | Code | Name |
| A | Austria | FL | Liechtenstein | N | Norway |
| B | Belgium | GR | Greece | NL | Netherlands |
| CH | Switzerland | ISR | Israel | P | Portugal |
| D | Germany | I | Italy | S | Sweden |
| DK | Denmark | IRL | Ireland | SF | Finland |
| E | Spain | ISL | Iceland | UK | United Kingdom |
| F | France | L | Luxembourg | ||
| Other according to standard ISO list | |||||
| 3. ADMINISTRATIVE ROLE | |||||
| C | Coordinator | A | Associate Partner | P | Partner |
| 4. ORGANISATION TYPE | |||||
| U | University | A | Public Administration | R | Research Institute |
| I | Industry | O | Other | ||
| 5. FUNCTIONAL ROLE | |||||
| S | Supplier | U | User | ||
| Please note that this relates to the specific role that your organisation has in this proposal with respect to its expected results. If both apply please choose the one most relevant in this project. | |||||
| 6. INDUSTRIAL SECTORS | |||||
| Identify the relevant industrial sector of the organisation in the proposal and include the corresponding code in the appropriate space on Form 2 | |||||
| Code | |||||
| Business | |||||
| Finance and Insurance | FI | ||||
| Business, legal and management consultancy; holdings | BC | ||||
| Publishing, printing and reproduction of recorded media | PP | ||||
| Real estate activities | RE | ||||
| Renting and leasing | RL | ||||
| Lodging and restaurants | LR | ||||
| Technical testing and analysis | TA | ||||
| Wholesale and retail trade; repair of goods | WR | ||||
| Community activities | |||||
| Community service activities | CS | ||||
| Education | ED | ||||
| Energy production and distribution; gas and water supply | EN | ||||
| Health and social work | HS | ||||
| Recreational, cultural and sporting activities | RC | ||||
| Recycling | CY | ||||
| Post and telecommunications | PT | ||||
| Transportation services | TS | ||||
| Engineering (other than software engineering) | |||||
| Electrical engineering and related technical consultancy | EE | ||||
| Mechanical engineering and related technical consultancy | ME | ||||
| IT activities | |||||
| Audiovisual consumer electronics | IA | ||||
| Electronic components | IC | ||||
| Electronic engineering and related technical consultancy | IE | ||||
| Industrial process control systems | IP | ||||
| Office machinery and computers | IM | ||||
| Software consultancy and supply, data processing and related Services | IS | ||||
| Manufacturing | |||||
| Aircraft and spacecraft | AS | ||||
| Metals and alloys | MA | ||||
| Chemical products | CP | ||||
| Fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment | FM | ||||
| Food products and beverages | FB | ||||
| Furniture | FV | ||||
| Leather and leather products | LL | ||||
| Machinery, electrical and electrical instruments | EQ | ||||
| Medical, precision and optical instruments | IN | ||||
| Non-metallic mineral products | MP | ||||
| Pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemicals and botanical products | PH | ||||
| Pulp, paper and paper products | PA | ||||
| Rubber and plastic products | RU | ||||
| Textile and textile products | TE | ||||
| Vehicles for land transportation | VL | ||||
| Vehicles for sea transportation | VS | ||||
| Wood and wood products | WW | ||||
| Other activites | |||||
| Agriculture and forestry | AF | ||||
| Construction and building | CB | ||||
| Fishing | FS | ||||
| Mining and quarrying | MQ | ||||
| Telecom products | IT | ||||
| Activity code not provided above | NN | ||||
European Commission
Directorate General III: Industry
RTD: Information Technologies
|
Please write the name and address to |
|
|
VERY IMPORTANT We may ask the representatives of proposers to attend meetings and/or provide further information at any time after the closing date and especially in the first two months after this date. In your own interest please ensure that representatives are available at short notice during this period. | |
|
To be completed by Coordinating Partner | |
|
Reference : | |
|
Proposal Title : | |
|
Acronym : | |
|
Domain : | |
|
To be completed by Esprit Evaluation Coordinator | |
|
We are pleased to acknowledge receipt of your proposal above on :..................................................................
Yours sincerely, | |
| Affiliated Organisation | Two organisations are affiliated if either one directly or indirectly controls the other or if both are directly or indirectly controlled by the same parent organisation. Organisation A is considered as controlling B if:
|
| CORDIS | Community Research and Development Information Service (see Section 5 in Introductory Booklet) |
| EC | European Commission |
| EU | European Union |
| EEA | European Economic Area, includes the EU, Iceland and Norway. The EEA agreement is not in force for Liechtenstein at the time of printing this document |
| EEIG | European Economic Interest Grouping. A legal entity consisting of several European organisations which could participate as such in a project under an EU programme. A guide to the role of EEIGs in RTD can be obtained from the IT Programme Information Desk (see section 5 in Introductory Booklet) and more detailed documentation is also available from Directorate General XV (Financial Institutions and Company Law) |
| EFTA | European Free Trade Association, includes Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland |
| ESSI | European Software Systems Initiative, a best practice activity in ST |
| HPCN | High Performance Computing and Networking: one of the four focused clusters in the IT work programme |
| ICT | Information and Communication Technologies |
| IiM | Integration in manufacturing: one of the four focused clusters in the IT programme |
| IT | Information technology |
| IPR | Intellectual property rights |
| JRC | Joint Research Centre of the EC |
| LTR | Long term research: one of the domains in the IT work programme |
| MS | Multimedia systems: one of the three domains of underpinning technologies in the IT work programme |
| OMI | Open microprocessor systems initiative: one of the four focused clusters in the IT work programme |
| RTD | Research and technological development, including demonstration |
| SME | Small/medium sized enterprise. For SME Exploratory Awards, enterprises will be eligible if they satisfy simultaneously the following three criteria:
|
| ST | Software technologies: one of the three domains of underpinning technologies in the IT work programme |
| TBP | Technologies for business processes: one of the four focused clusters in the IT work programme |
| TCS | Technologies for components and subsystems: one of the three domains of underpinning technologies in the IT work programme |
National Contact Points will help if you have any questions about the Programme and the preparation of proposals.
A list of National Contact Points is available for consultation.
The URL of this document is /esprit/src/ind-1st.htm
It was last updated on 2 April 1998 and is maintained by Gerda Colling