Introduction to the Janus Project
May 13, 2003

JANUS is the name of the Roman God with the double head that looks ahead and back at the same time. In this it is a symbol for policy development that should be based on looking at the past in order to prepare for the future. The project JANUS intends to do so by bringing together a core of socio-economic research projects in order to help develop a better picture of the past, the dynamics and the possible futures.

The accelerating pace of change in the world economy during the latter half of the 20th century is ongoing. The past decade has seen a sequence of rapid, widespread and potentially profound changes that appear to challenge conventional understanding of the economy and its relations to other domains (including the environment, society and culture). In order to be able to act in this time of high uncertainty it is important that the best knowledge is gathered to improve the understanding of the nature and direction of the change and of the mechanisms that determine the direction and impact of policy actions.

As we approach the later stages of the Fifth Framework Programme (5FP), many significant results have already emerged from IST socio-economic research, but much remains to be done and the time is now ripe for a coordinated effort to consolidate and improve existing work and make this widely available to people who need to know. Also at the present time, intensive preparations are being made for the Sixth Framework Programme (6FP) and the subsequent work programmes to which JANUS can contribute to ensure both continuity but also innovation and new thinking about the future directions of such research.

The present moment (approaching mid 2002) constitutes a unique opportunity to exploit the joint scope and synergy of existing socio-economic research projects within the IST Programme. These include a multitude of projects from the Cross Programme Actions (including socio-economic research and statistical tools, methods and indicators), from the Key Actions (especially new methods of work and electronic commerce, and systems and services for the citizen), and those which have a significant socio-economic research element, as well as relevant project clusters and research networks.

Against this background the prime objective of JANUS is:

" to function as a clearing house for knowledge developed in a wide range of IST projects by bringing together the results from these projects, and jointly reach out with unified messages".

For this purpose JANUS proposal has been designed with two overall goals:

    1. The establishment of an open mechanism to bring together, compare, coordinate and consolidate significant results of current socio-economic research within the IST Programme. This will ensure that disparate efforts are effectively brought together to create a new synthesis, and will improve the work of individual projects and the IST Programme as a whole.
    2. The establishment of an open platform to communicate synthesised but also sharply focused results in concise and professionally designed formats to targets outside the Programme in the wider European society which have a need to know, in a timely and accessible manner, the current overall status, results and directions of such research. Thus, in addition to the IST Programme speaking with numerous, often highly specialised and disparate voices, JANUS will provide a single consolidated voice representing main trends and conclusions of the socio-economic research output of the programme as a whole.
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