"Adjuvants are critical to the quality and magnitude of immune responses generated by PRD vaccines. However, vaccine development is hampered by lack of access to appropriate adjuvants. This is partly because adjuvants are developed in many organizations, with individual models and protocols that have been established independently. The resulting data on adjuvants are only rarely directly comparable and exploitable in other vaccine studies. The project objective is to determine the laboratory tests that can be used to harmonize pre-clinical determination of vaccine adjuvant activity and safety throughout Europe, including new-member countries, and in the developing world, based on an in-depth survey and analysis of best practice employed by industry and other stakeholders in adjuvant R&D. A database of survey results will be analysed by experts and used to establish the tests that are considered most useful by stakeholders to characterize adjuvant activity and safety. Dissemination of results will occur through a workshop organized with WHO for stakeholders (including key international organizations representatives), publications and websites. The tests will allow the activities of adjuvants to be compared directly and will therefore contribute a major advantage in the selection of adjuvants to be included in PRD vaccine development programmes."