"The seismic behaviour of connections in precast construction systems has been largely recognized as a crucial matter to be addressed both by the industry sector and by the related research community. In spite of this situation, the complexity of the problem and the variety of inherent issues to be harmonizedly dealt with in proposing design procedures for connections and precast structures as a whole, have made it difficult so far to conceive self-sufficient solutions and approaches of general validity. Scope of SAFECAST is to give effective answers to this need of self-sufficient, harmonized solution of the problems of correct seismic design of joints and connections in precast structures. The innovative aspect of the project is the unified performance based perspective in which the problem of the characterization of the seismic behaviour of connections will be dealt with. Such complex problem, in fact, needs to be dealt with in a unified performance based framework, since when dimensioning and designing the system for an optimum performance under earthquake loading, all the other basic performance requirements, i.e. durability, deformability limits, energy dissipation…, are also to be taken into account and complied with. The proposed consortium represents a unique combination of countries joined by two peculiar characteristics: for all of them seismic loads play a fundamental role in the construction sector. Secondly, all partners are “concrete counties”, nations for which concrete is the main construction material. For these reasons, the immediate expected consequence of the proposed project is to improve competitiveness of precasting, as a sector, to promote a general increase in the quality and safety of constructions offered to the market and end-users in general, to enhance the contents of precast building solutions in terms of quality guarantee, performance optimization, reliability, safety in the event of an earthquake."