The iBETTER project aims to join industrial and academic forces to develop a new prognostic methodology that predicts the useful life after a fault has occured in these bearings. Thirty researchers from the fields of tribology, condition monitoring and rolling bearing technology from two industrial and two academic partners will be seconded from one sector to the other, to implement a common research programme covering all relevant aspects of integrated diagnostic and prognostic models for rolling element bearings. The project has a balanced mixture of secondments (108 months, 29 people) and new recruitments (92 months, 6 people), and of experience level of the personnel involved. The collaborative programme is designed to allow researchers to exchange skills, knowledge and experiences and mutually benefit from each other’s expertise. In addition, the project partners will recruit 6 experienced reserachers specialised in numerical modelling, mechatronics,ferrography, statistics, and artifical intelligence to gain additional knowledge necessary for the research programme, and not currently present at the partners. The schedule of secondee visits and a special training and transfer of knowledge scheme were designed to match the work plan and to optimise synergies. Collectively, the consortium has the appropriate combination of analysis and process equipment to perform the work plan. Synergistic collaboration between sectors is crucial to achieve the objectives of iBETTER, which cannot be achieved on the basis of the knowledge present in each of the two sectors or at any one partner alone. Academic knowledge and fundamental understanding of the tribological principles and condition monitoring have to be combined with industrial know-how on bearing technology and requirements deriving from real-life applications in order to make iBETTER a success.