The support action will prepare the grounds for a new type of collaborative MT research dedicated to overcoming existing quality barriers. QTLaunchPad will assemble and provide needed data and tools in-cluding specialised translation corpora, test suites and tools for quality assessment, create a shared quality metrics for human and machine translation, improve automatic translation quality estimation, extend an existing platform for resource-sharing to the needs of quality MT research, define strategies and challenges and then plan and launch a large-scale research and innovation action for a breakthrough in quality translation technology.European research has the potential to overtake Google in the pursuit of automatic quality translation! A successful venture directed at breaking the quality barriers in MT and putting European MT research ahead of its competitors requires a strong combination of expertise, scope and ambition together with the courage to diverge from mainstream research in goals and style. The envisaged progress will be based on highly specialized quality services, an analytical systematic fight against quality obstacles, improved utili-zation of shared data and tools, the integration of translation providers in research, deployment, testing and business models, and a concerted competitive model of technology evolution. In contrast to the large generic gist translation online services, the final target will be a service model based on competition and combination of specialised services, accounting for and capitalising on the SME-dominated European LT and LSP industries. For the planning process, QTLaunchPad will assemble the best European centres of MT research, the most sophisticated and enthusiastic large-scale users of translation technology including enlightened potential users, technophile and quality-conscious translation service providers, providers of language tools and resources and experienced technology integrators.