The project has come to the end. I am pleased to say that all planned activities and results of the project have been achieved.

The established links, both personal and institutional are sound and sustainable. The Institute had significantly increased its visibility and capacity. The list of meetings, secondments and visits financed by the project is high. The details can be found in this bulletin.

In the course of the execution of the project, it turned out, that an extension of the network would be beneficial. Thus, visits to NTNU Trondheim (Norway), Stuttgart University (Germany), Instituto Motori at Naples (Italy) and Rolls-Royce (Germany) had taken place, substantially extending the range of networking and opening new areas of research.

The project has been seen as a success story by the European Commission with a special paper appearing the EC news.

The success of the project should be attributed to all participants. My deepest thanks go to all collaborating institutions: specifically to Dr Hämäläinen from VTT, Prof. Derek Ingham from Leeds University, Prof. Antonio Valero from CIRCE, University of Zaragoza, and Prof. Giampaolo Manfrida from University of Florence. My thanks goes also to the leaders of the Workpackages: Prof. Andrzej Szlęk, Prof. Andrzej Nowak and Dr Ziemowit Ostrowski. The administration work has been executed efficiently by Ms Katarzyna Markiewicz-Śliwa, Ms Agata Rudzińska and Ms Agnieszka Wyżgolik. I wish to express my gratitude to Ms Joanna Słowik, who took over the job, after Agata left our Institute.

Should I have a chance to lead, with this excellent team of collaborators, another project of this type again, I would have no doubts to go for it.

Ryszard Białecki

Project Coordinator