Another possibility would be to use the "clone" feature. Create your template project and then, when you want to create a new one, go to that project, right click on the project node and select the "Clone Project" option. That will effectively create a "copy" of the project that you can then adapt for your new set of tests.
One draw back is that if you are using libraried code in a common folder, instead of preserving the links to that libraried code, a copy is made so you would have to relink your libraries. I think AQA staff has some sort of issue open already for that.
