The aftermath of too many dramatic events involving public structures and private buildings collapse makes imperative to ask ourselves whether anything can be done to mitigate their effects or avoid them and save the lives taken as a result of their occurrence. Wireless sensor network (WSN)-based systems for structural health monitoring could be the answer to this crucial question were they able to provide long lasting monitoring and robust and reliable data delivery as requested by increasing safety demands.This is unfortunately unavailable today.The GENESI project proposes research addressing all the critical barriers and challenges that prevent the application of WSNs for monitoring structures, buildings and spaces. In particular, by combining new hardware and software design, the GENESI will produce systems for structural health monitoring that are long lasting, pervasive and totally distributed and autonomous.New wireless sensor nodes will be build that are capable of achieving virtual infinite lifetime through a well-balanced combination of cutting edge technologies, such as energy harvesting from multiple sources, the first small factor fuel cells, low-cost radio triggering for minimizing idle energy consumption and algorithms for smart interference management.New software will complement the GENESI hardware in the quest of long lasting system lifetime by taking into account the "when" and "how much" of energy availability. At the same time, end user requirements will be met according to a newly defined application driven Quality of Service concept.Novel task allocation algorithms, cross-layer protocol stacks, situation awareness and context discovery mechanisms complete the definition of a system that addresses the major challenges of the ICT theme of FP7. Finally, involving end users directly into the research cycle as key players,GENESI is poised to address realisticsocietal needs while fostering technology transfer and market exploitation.