Objective:
This action seeks to open and foster dynamic pathways between public research organisations and private commercial enterprises, in particular SMEs, including traditional manufacturing industries, based on longer term co-operation programmes with a high potential for increasing knowledge-sharing and mutual understanding of the different cultural settings and skill requirements of both sectors.

What will be funded:
Proposals from all scientific and technological research fields of interest to the EU are welcomed by the IAPP team with the exception of research areas covered by the EURATOM Treaty.
Support is provided for the creation, development, reinforcement and execution of strategic partnerships based on a longer-term cooperation programme between the participants, aimed at knowledge sharing and inter-sector mobility, based on targeted human resources interaction. Such strategic research partnership projects can be co-ordinated either by an industrial or an academic participant. The longer-term cooperation programme shall exploit complementary competences of the participants in the strategic partnership, as well as other synergies.

Requirements for the consortium:
To qualify for an IAPP, your proposal must include one or more universities/ research centres and one or more enterprises. The industrial partners must be operating on a commercial basis. An IAPP project proposal must come from partners in at least two different EU Member States or Associate Countries. Partners from Third Countries can also join in, but only if enough EU members or associates are represented in the partnership .
Your project should promote a strategic research partnership, which can be co-ordinated by either a commercial or a non-commercial participant. It should also highlight longer-term cooperation. And it should make full use of all the skills and synergies available in the partnership.

Participation in IAPP:
Participants under this action are on the one hand, one or more universities/research centres and on the other, one or more enterprises, in particular SMEs, that propose a project based on a joint cooperation programme. Within this scheme, the industrial partners must be organisations operating on a commercial basis, i.e. companies gaining the majority of their revenue through competitive means with exposure to commercial markets, and will include incubators, start-ups and spin-offs, venture capital companies, etc. The different participants should be from at least two different Member or Associated countries, of which at least one must be from a Member State. The participants recruit and/or host eligible researchers and contribute directly to the implementation of longer-term cooperation programmes established between them in line with the objectives of this action.

IAPP proposals are selected in an open competition. Selection is through transparent, independent peer review, based on excellence using a series of predetermined criteria.
Selection criteria are available on the following website:
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/people/industry-academia_en.html