Editorial - Michel Freyssenet

The committee's discussion emphasized that the programme is embarking on a new phase, and with that a new style of working. After a phase marked by multiple exchanges, getting to know each other, wide-ranging discussions, and involving a vast amount of information, authors and book coordinators must now progress to the intensive task of writing if they are to meet the December 1995 deadline for delivery of manuscripts to the publisher. This will involve intensive editing, coordination and modification so that the final books are not only coherent in their own right but also consistent with the overall problem and general development of the GERPISA programme. We have taken the gamble of arriving at a variety of conclusions. We have also "bet" that there will be rich results from comparing these conclusions on the basis of a shared set of questions wich the successive versions of the text "The Emergence of New industrial Models: Preliminary Findings and Conclusions", by Robert Boyer and Michel Freyssenet have attempted to define. The International Steering Committee is therefore asking authors to utilize this text in this spirit as a tool for aiding their own analysis and editing, so that the different books, with their various chapters, really speak to one another.

The effort put into conceptual clarification and the edition of "false" questions, together with the recognition of forthcoming deadlines, are already evident in GERPISA's discussions, which have now become (spontaneously and voluntarily) more focused and effective. This was clear in the discussions (see "Research Questions") sparked off by the third version of the general text (Boyer-Freyssenet) (second version in English) on 2nd and 3rd December.

The editorial team of the Lettre du GERPISA wishes you all an excellent end-of-year holiday period. Our wishes for 1995 are to see the successful completion of our international programme and that all of you will gain what you hoped for from your participation in it.