Impact

COVER projected impact
As a Coordination and Support Action, COVER will not produce its own research results other than in depth accident data as input for involved initiatives. However, COVER will be vital for an efficient conduction of several European research projects in the field of biomechanics for crash protection by coordinating some joined activities and dissemination. External dissemination as intended in COVER, is a key factor to create necessary visibility and acceptance at stakeholders. The main achievements of COVER will be a significant reduction of lead times for acceptance and implementation of research findings from the participating initiatives, all dealing with vehicle safety. As such COVER is a direct response to the societal need for safe cars as described above and aims to contribute to the reduction of the numbers of fatalities and injuries as well as the severity of injuries on roads.

Spreading excellence and exploiting results
Spreading excellence
Cover includes a range of support actions like monitoring and assessment of ongoing research world-wide, organization of workshops and joined meetings to exchange best practices.
For the participating projects the added value will be that each of them can learn from the results of the other projects, direct its further activities accordingly and avoid following unpromising approaches identified in other projects. Moreover, COVER will stimulate exchange of costly experimental data. This will increase the efficiency of the projects and provide an extended scientific basis for much of the research work in individual projects.
All participants of the involved underlying projects will clearly benefit from COVER by gaining additional technical and strategic information from a wide set of projects related to vehicle safety.

Exploiting results
Apart from in-depth accident data required for some of the involved projects COVER will not produce its own research results and has therefore not defined any exploitation related activities of its own. But as a Coordination Action, COVER will be vital for an efficient conduction of several European research projects in the field of impact biomechanics. As such, COVER allows the best possible use of efforts invested in these research activities. Via its coordination activities and additional exchange of best practices COVER will fully exploit synergies between the initiatives and as such accelerate the introduction of new "crucial" technologies in vehicles to further reduce road fatalities and injuries to car occupants.

Although COVER will not generate any RTD related results itself, the direct access to research findings and results is key for all partners in the participating projects. The automotive market is a highly competitive in all domains where partners operate. In such a market it is essential to have early and "well explained" access to latest biomechanics research and its application in evaluation procedures. This allows them to develop protective systems based on latest research findings. Timing, being first to the market, is crucial for all participants.