ESPRIT, the European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology

At the level of individual projects, each ESPRIT project is contracted to a consortium of organisations, with a minimum of two partners from different member states; projects are typically contracted to 4 to 8 partners. A major difference for the participants is also that the Community supports 50% of the project budget, as opposed to 100% with DARPA. The other 50% contributions come from the organisations themselves and somehow guarantee that the project is of genuine interest to the industrial organisations involved. At the end of the project, the property rights remain with the project participants. Eligibil i ty for participation in an ESPRIT project requires that the organisat ion be incorporated in one of the 12 member states, namely Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, Ireland, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The participation has also been extended to organisations incorporated in one of the "EFTA countries", namely Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland; however, in that case, the Community does not contribute to the costs of the EFTA organisation(s).