The discrepancy between organ supply and demand remains the biggest challenge facing the transplant community today. In order to increase the amount of available donor organs, transplant specialists are increasingly turning to sub-optimal donor organs. Organs from such donors, usually have normal or near normal function before death, but retrieval, storage and transplantation cause progressive injury to the organ. Injury is predominantly caused by inadequate or absent delivery of oxygen and nutrients, either in the warm or cold preservation environment.New techniques to improve organ preservation are being developed and the COPE consortium including:• Normothermic liver machine perfusion (NMP)• Hypothermic kidney machine perfusion (HMP)• Novel additives for preservation solutionsThese strategies are all directed to the vital period that starts at the time of circulatory arrest and extends to the point of transplantation. Specifically, they will tackle the following challenges:• Exposure of donor organs to ischaemic injury whilst the organs remain in the donor.• Progressive deterioration of the organ during conventional organ preservation.• Repair of the organ during preservation using perfusate and pharmacological interventions.• Identification of reliable predictors of organ viability using biological and other pre-transplant parameters.The COPE consortium is the official organ preservation task force of ESOT and consists of a number ofEuropean transplantation centers, front running transplantation research groups and a number of SMEs involved in developing perfusion fluids and technology. Together, they will be able to generate the statistical power and protocols necessary to test, validate and promote these new organ preservation techniques and increase the number of available solid donor organs.