"Structural health monitoring (SHM) and non-intrusive damage detection techniques have become important research topics - motivated by the potential life-safety and very large potential economic impact of the technologies with respect to their earthquake/ disaster mitigation potential and their role as key enabling technology of condition-based maintenance practices. The potential to save thousands of civilian lives and billions of Euros currently drives efforts in mainly Asia and North America. ISMS – a collaborative effort between a Danish SME within vibration technologies in combination with two research organizations, French INRIA and Canadian UBC – aims to build a long-term partnership around the development of web-based damage detection procedures applied to instrumented civil infrastructures, which are robust to environmental changes. The innovation lies in the coupling of identification-based methods on one side, and statistical damage detection techniques on the other side – both elements communicating on a single platform on the structure. Progress within SHM research is currently hampered by the inter-disciplinary and intersectoral barriers posed by scientific fragmentation and a disproportionate emphasis on instrumentation aspects. The IAPP program is chosen as an ideal vehicle to overcome the barriers to integration: ISMS proposes the secondment of 6 researchers over a total of 28 months; the recruitment of one experienced capacity for 18 months; and accompanying networking activities. The project has the potential to develop an extended European research community of world-leading capability within SHM of civil infrastructures. The impact is foreseen not only due to the achievement of scientific project results – but through the project’s positive impact on individual research capability; the significant commercial impact and incentives; the network integration and transfer of knowledge and results within and beyond the consortium."