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The Consortium

This consortium brings together leading skills found within the Partner organisations as national metrology institutes (NMIs) and designated institutes (DIs) who are complemented by a number of research institutes and universities and clinical partners (the later acting as collaborators in the project). Because of the highly interdisciplinary approach of this project no institute could address all of these challenges on their own. In teamwork, this project, through coordination of national and individual activities into coherent research activities, will make a significant step forward to improve the metrology underpinning hearing assessment and audiological measurement.
The consortium covers a wide range of expertise usually not brought together in audiology research and development. Physiological knowledge about the ear, technical expertise simulating the ears response in a device, and behavioural hearing assessment are combined with non-invasive imaging methods targeting the responses to sound within brain signals.

PTB has long term experience with audiological measurements, determination of hearing thresholds and maintenance of audiological standards. There is also an expertise in measurement and characterisation of sound fields and the assessment of sound and safety aspects. Non-invasive characterisation of brain function by MEG and fMRI has been a key area of the medical physics division of PTB.

DFM is the world leading institute for microphone calibration, setting the ultimate uncertainty limits in particular for ultrasound measurement and calibration.

BKSV as DI is a Partner closely related to industry. BKSV is separated from the main company Brüel & Kjær and is dealing with measurements and acoustic technology. It will carry out important manufacturing tasks for prototyping. This also shows the industrial relevance of the project because the new ear simulator to be developed is attractive as a new product for the medical engineering market.

METAS provides a wide range of services in acoustics and is experienced in the calibration of reference devices - such as ear simulators - used to establish traceability in audiometric measurements.

TUBITAK has facilities for calibration of ear simulators within a wide range of environmental conditions.

The Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton (UoS) is a leading research institute for a wide range of aspects of acoustics, sound and vibration. It has particular experience in noise, ultrasounds, audiology and signal processing.

The IFA of DGUV is a leading institute for occupational safety and health in Germany and because of its close connection to the German Social Accident Insurance it is experienced with a very high number of cases and problems in current safety work. This ensures a high practical relevance of the project work.

UCL Ear Institute has excellent facilities for hearing research and conducts high-level research in audiology with particular experience in hearing mechanisms at low-frequencies.

UKE is one of the largest university hospitals in Germany and houses the Medical School of the University of Hamburg. The clinic is internationally renowned for research on psychiatric disorders and the development of state-of-art intervention and treatment programs.

Uni-Oldenburg is one of the world’s leading research institutions for hearing and audiology. Using brain imaging methods as fMRI is part of the research activities to investigate the interrelation of psychoacoustic measures like loudness perception or speech intelligibility and the corresponding brain activity.

UL Laboratory of Metrology and Quality is part of University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and has experience in physical measurements, metrology research, running psychoacoustic tests, measuring physiological and psychological parameters and data analysis.