Frequently Asked Questions
 
What is the 6th Framework Program (FP6)?
The FP is the EU's main instrument for research funding in Europe. The FP is proposed by the European Commission and adopted by Council and the European Parliament following a co-decision procedure. FPs cover a period of five years with the last year of one FP and the first year of the following FP overlapping. FPs have been implemented since 1984. The Sixth FP (FP6) is operational as of January 1, 2003. The APROSYS proposal was submitted to Thematic priority: 1.6.2 Sustainable Surface Transport, Call 1B: Safety of European Roads.

What is the difference between the 5th Framework Program and the 6th Framework Program?
The main difference envisaged by the EU was the size of the project. FP6 IP's are supposed to be larger projects involving a larger number of researches.

What is an IP?
IP stands for Integrated Project. IP's are new instruments to create a European Research Area (ERA) as a vision for the future of research in Europe. Typical duration of a IP is 4-5 years and may involve 10-50 partners from industry, research institutes and universities. Total budgets may range from 10-50 million Euro of which the EC generally provides half.

What is the relation to the Advanced Passive Safety Network (APSN)?
The IP APROSYS was initiated by the Passive Safety Network. The follow-up Advanced Passive Safety Network and APROSYS share an advisory board of experts and stakeholders.

What is the relation to the EUCAR Integrated Safety Program?
The IP APROSYS is one of the projects that contribute to the Integrated Approach to road safety developed by EUCAR. Other contributing projects are AIDE, PReVENT, EASIS and GST.

What does APROSYS stand for?
APROSYS is an acronym for Advanced Protection Systems.

What are the APROSYS project budget and duration?
The total budget for APROSYS is 29,791.250 Euro. The total project duration is 5 years.

Where does the budget come from?
The European Commission grants Euro exactly 18 Million. The remainder of the budget comes in the form of contracts from local governments, companies or contributions from partners themselves.

Can we still join APROSYS as a new partner?
The partners and associated budgets for first 42 months of the IP are fixed. Principally, after this period a limited number of new partners could enter the IP if this is considered to be necessary for the execution of the research. It has to be clearly demonstrated however that the required expertise is not yet present within the existing consortium. Please contact the Sub project leaders directly to discuss possibilities.