National Contact Points (NCPs) are national structures established and financed by governments of the 15 EU member states and the 18 states associated to the Framework Programme. NCPs give personalised support to researchers preparing proposals and contracts for the Framework Programme on the spot and in the proposers' own languages. The NCP systems in the different countries show a wide variety of architectures, from highly centralised to decentralised networks, and a number of very different actors, from ministries to universities, research centres and special agencies to private consulting companies.
The aim of this survey is to present an overview of the different systems with some basic data on resources, types of organisations involved and services offered in the countries. The presentation is based on data and information provided by the national coordinators of the NCP systems between September and December 2003.