The Aim

Ideal-ist reduces the barriers faced by organisations wishing to participate in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) programme by offering transnational partner search.

• joining ICT projects
• finding partners for your project idea
• finding services to support you in your ICT project

within the Seventh European Framework Programme.

It has been noted that the most successful proposers are those with previous project experience. There is a high initial obstacle to participation that is a combination of lack of experience and a lack of contacts and awareness. Once this threshold is crossed and an organisation paricipates in a fundet project, many of the barriers to future participation are considerably reduced. It is addressing this threshold that is in essence the main objective of Ideal-ist.

The Ideal-ist network is co-financed by the European Commission and has 49 national representatives in all Member States, Candidate Countries and Associated States, as well as Western Balkan Countries, Newly Independent States and Mediterranean Countries.

Ideal-ist collaborates through a broad geographical network with partners in Third Countries such as China, Brazil, India, Canada, South Africa, South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand in-line with the international cooperation strategy of the European Commission.

By collaborating with other European projects Ideal-ist is continuously extending the access to its partner search service.

    Partner Search

Newcomers need partners or have to identify forming consortia in order to take part in ICT calls. Idealist addresses this problem by a proven partner search mechanism. The Idealist online partner search, originally developed during Framework Program (FP) 4 and continually enhanced, is based on a number of key elements:

• It operates with specific vetted proposal ideas, rather than generally advertising research capability.
• It is tightly supervised in that each proposed search is reviewed prior to being published by the National expert and the Quality team and checked for applicability and basic correctness.
• It is proactive in seeking out potential partners, rather than simply storing them in a database, waiting to be discovered by an online user.
• It targets the Strategic Objectives of the ICT Theme and is call-specific.
• It is supported locally by Idealist reoresentative who can help formulate the search and ensure that searches reach the correct types of organisations.