To fulfill the EU-OPS Regulation's requirement to carry out a scientific and medical evaluation of Subpart Q's FTL provisions, in late 2006 EASA set up an Advisory Group bringing together all relevant aviation stakeholders. In this framework, airline and aviation staff experts were consulted on the drafting of the EASA tender document, on its selection criteria ^[1], the project's working methodology and the specific questions that were to be submitted to the scientists^[2]. After this stakeholder consultation, EASA launched a tender (EASA.2007.OP.08). The tender resulted in a Swiss consultancy being chosen which had put together a panel of renowned European scientists. The draft final report by Moebus Aviation was presented to the Agency and stakeholders in late Sept. 2008 and discussed in the Advisory Group in early Nov. 2008.

^[1] These criteria were "to guarantee a high level of knowledge, competence and independence, so that their conclusions can provide for a strong scientific basis for regulating flight time limitations and rest periods in an objective way" (quote from the EASA tender). ^[2] EASA chose to focus the study on "the points of disagreement between the main parties affected by FTL regulations and to seek the opinion of a panel of independent experts on the right way to address these points" (quote from the EASA Tender).