The existence of gravitational waves was indirectly confirmed through the study of the double neutron star binary, sometimes referred to as the Hulse-Taylor pulsar. While the rate that the 
orbit shrinks is exactly as predicted by the theory of General Relativity, there is still no
direct detection of gravitational waves. I will discuss how one can use precision timing of the best astrophysical clocks known, millisecond pulsars, to achieve a direct detection. Not only 
will such a detection have important implications for theories of gravity, as the pulsars trace gravitational waves with periods of years, they probe events which happened early in the 
history of the Universe, such as merging supermassive blackholes and cosmic strings. I will discuss the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) which is a European effort spanning multiple 
institutes and multiple telescopes. I will present the current best upper limit on the stochastic gravitational wave background will be reported. I will also introduce a project on the near 
horizon called The Large European Array for Pulsars (LEAP). It has as its main goal to coherently combine the signals of the large telescopes in Europe into a tied-array and increase the 
sensitivity, to that of a 200 m dish, for pulsars and thereby increase the precision of pulsar timing. I will present results from the initial combinations of data and discuss the prospects 
for the future.