In 1994 the Economic and Social Research Council launched a new research programme entitled, "The Learning Society: Knowledge and Skills for Employment." The programme focuses on post-compulsory education and training in a wide variety of contexts. The main aim is to harness the best ideas in the social sciences to enable to make steady progress towards becoming a learning society.
Fifteen projects in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales as well as England have been funded; and these projects are described in more detail in this web space. In all, more than fifty researchers - adult educators, economists, educationalists, psychologists and sociologists - are part of the programme which continues until March 2000.
The programme  has interest for a broad spectrum of users and beneficiaries including industrialists, educational pressure groups, politicians, policy-makers, the media, voluntary groups, the academic community and the general public. The firm intention is to influence the policy debate across all the relevant areas covered by the programme and to ensure a strong comparative dimension.