EMIT (European Medical Imaging Technology), a consortium of universities and hospitals from Sweden, France, Italy and the UK, won the award for its pioneering work in developing Europe’s first structured e-learning programmes for training and education in ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging technology.

The Leonardo da Vinci Award is the new international award launched by the European Union to acknowledge achievements in education and training. 165 exemplary projects were selected from more than 4,000 EU projects. From these, 32 "success-stories" were nominated for the Award and an International Committee of Experts finally selected three projects.

The EMIT project was the first to be announced as winner of the first Leonardo Award. The innovation and the volume (more than 1 GB) of EMIT’s e-Learning materials were described as "unmatched in their breadth and depth".

The EMIT partners believe that their training materials – available in electronic form on CD and on a dedicated website – are the first of their kind in the world. The idea is to provide the trainee with all necessary professional skills in ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging technologies.

The EMIT training e-learning materials include more than 1,900 original images and 600 pages of explanations of the tasks (including various practical protocols). All these materials are handled by a special Image Database and by an original user-friendly HTML shell. As a result, the user can learn directly from his/her PC, or online, without the need of external software.