The Trial Guidance Methodology (TGM) handbook is a joint effort of the whole DRIVER+ consortium. The DRIVER+ project (Driving Innovation in Crisis Management for European Resilience) has received funding from the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration under Grant Agreement (GA) N° #607798.
First, we would like to thank the Project Officer, Guillaume Lapeyre, our review team from the EC Research Executive Agency, as well as the DRIVER+ Advisory Board for believing in the underlying approach and the continuous provision of highly relevant and constructive feedback and inputs. Next to this, the DRIVER+ internal review board deserves sincere gratitude for an always timely, meticulous, and precious input. Thank you so much, Julia Zillies and Tim Stelkens-Kobsch (DLR, Quality Managers), Marcel van Berlo (TNO, Technical Coordinator), Peter Petiet and Marijn Rijken (TNO, Project Directors), David Lund (PSCE), Marcin Smolarkiewicz (SGSP), Rob Munro (ARTTIC) and Francisco Gala (ATOS). We are very glad about the amount of interest the handbook has raised and would also like to thank our “volunteer reviewers”, who shared their important thoughts with us: Angela Schmitt (DLR), Anna Foks-Ryznar (SRC PAS), Edith Felix (Thales Group), Tomasz Zwęgliński (SGSP).In addition to that, we have received many encouraging and highly useful comments from outside the consortium. Given the iterative design approach, the handbook has been publicly available between March and September 2019: Our gratitude goes to all those who have downloaded the handbook, and in particular to those who shared their positive and constructive feedback with us.
The handbook would not exist without the highly valuable contributions, intense discussions, and tireless commitment of the methodological core team: Many thanks to Dirk Stolk, Kees van Dongen, Lisette de Koning from TNO; Konstanze Lechner and Alexander Scharnweber from DLR; Stine Bergersen and Bruno Oliveira Martins from PRIO; Tom de Groeve and Funda Atun from JRC, Hanneke Vreugdenhil from HKV and Nicola Rupp and Michael Middelhoff from WWU. Having the whole DRIVER+ Pan-European Test-bed embedded in the methodological approach we further would like to thank all contributors in the network-, tools- and methods sections: Georg Neubauer, Dennis Havlik, Drazen Ignijatovic, Gerald Lichtenegger from AIT, Cor-Jan Vermeulen and Job Verkaik from HKV, Agnese Macaluso and Niels van Wanrooij from ECORYS, Michael Löscher, Stéphanie Albiero, Andreas Seipelt, Laure Dodin, Marion Bonlieu, Myriam Ben Ammar from ARTTIC, Andrzej Adamczyk, Magdalena Karczewicz-Lamparska, Karolina Pieniowska from ITTI, Joanna Tymińska and Emil Wrzosek from SRC PAS, Thomas Obritzhauser and Ludwig Kastner from Frequentis, Frédérique Giroud and Alice Clemenceau from Valabre, Thomas Seltsam from Palacio Camilo from ARC, Marcin Smolarkiewicz and Tomasz Zwęgliński from SGSP, Andre de Rond and Regis Flohr from SRH, Steven van Campen, Maurice Sammels, and Tinus Hendriks from XVR, and Erik Vullings from TNO.
Last but not least, our special thanks go to the interdisciplinary and highly committed design team which gifted us with a variety of perspectives on the methodology itself. Big thanks to Michael Middelhoff, Nicola Rupp, Johann Rolshoven, Felix Hummel, Sebastian Henke, Niclas Rotering, and Stefan Tenhagen (WWU) for an unforgettable design project including the iterative improvements and adjustments. Additionally, many thanks to Hugo Vivier (RIKKA), Santiago Duque (Squareclouds Design), and especially Uwe Wältring, Eske Lübbers and Fabian Holtrup (GUCC grafik & film) for their great ideas and highly professional fine tuning of the design results.
The time from the DRIVER+ kick-off in May 2014 to the release date of the current edition of the handbook in February 2020 was -for many of us- an impressive, instructive and intense journey of learning, experiencing and growing. Writing sessions, design workshops, intense discussions and continuous exchanges have paved the ground to a mature version that we are happy to share, in the hope that it will result into a stimulating reading.
We have come to realise that the journey has just began: we sincerely hope that the readers and future applicants of the TGM will enjoy their experience and understand the handbook as being a living book, which can and should grow with every single trial. We are deeply grateful for having been -literally- on the road with DRIVER+.
TGM Handbook editors
Chiara Fonio
European Commission, Joint Research Centre
Adam Widera
University of Muenster,
ERCIS Competence Center Crisis Management