Since our last Programme meeting, the ESRC has commissioned a third and final round of funding, which has brought the number of projects in the Programme up to 45. At this point, and with the end of the Programme in sight at 31st July 2007, it is now appropriate for us to consider how, as a fully-developed Programme, we can address the issue of the Programme’s legacy. With many research projects complete or about to complete, we are in a position to begin to pull out the threads that make up the over-arching picture arising from Programme research and to decide upon ways to ensure that the messages emanating from the Programme as a whole are clearly defined and articulated. In this way, we will most effectively target our audiences and reiterate the relevance of our work for business, NGOs, the media and civil society.
This meeting is intended, therefore, to help us to focus on the end of the Programme and the legacy that we will leave. We need to consider how to make certain that the lessons learned from Programme research live past the end date of project awards. One measure of our success at the end of the Programme will be that the ESRC will not feel it necessary to ring-fence funding for further work on similar themes to those in the Programme, as it has done in the past when other dedicated funds have run their course.
What we will develop at this meeting is an understanding of what the researchers on the Programme feel is necessary for the Programme as a whole to assure the continuity of intellectual endeavour.
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