The SPARC project is being designed in order to encompass the construction of an advanced photo-injector producing a 150-200 MeV beam to generate high brilliance FEL radiation in the visible region at the fundamental wavelength and at VUV wavelengths with the harmonics. SPARC will allow to investigate velocity bunching mechanisms in the bunch compressor and coherent harmonic generation in the undulators. The machine will be built at LNF, inside an underground bunker: it is comprised of an rf gun driven by a Ti:Sa laser, injecting into three SLAC accelerating sections. Investigations will be conducted on the emittance correction and on the rf compression techniques, which are expected to increase the peak current achievable at the injector exit up to kA level, with proper preservation of the transverse emittance. The system is expected to drive a FEL experiment, but it can also be used to investigate beam physics issues like surface-roughness-induced wake fields, bunch-length measurements in the sub-ps range, emittance degradation in magnetic compressors due to CSR, and Compton backscattering production of sub-ps X-ray pulses.