Between 1995 and 1998, the European Science Foundation funded an international research Network on social dialectology with the title ‘The Convergence and Divergence of Dialects in a Changing Europe’. The Network was founded and chaired by Peter Auer (Universities of Hamburg and later Freiburg, Germany, and Frans Hinskens (University of Nijmegen, at the time). Eleven European countries were officially represented by a scientific committee, which had as its members (in addition to the chairpersons):

1. 4 Wolfgang Dressler (Vienna)

2. 4 Walter Haas (Fribourg, Switzerland)

3. 4 Toon Hagen (Nijmegen)

4. 4 Jeffrey Kallen (Dublin)

5. 4 Paul Kerswill (Reading)

6. 4 Klaus Mattheier (Heidelberg)

7. 4 Inge Lise Pedersen (Copenhagen)

8. 4 Alberto Sobrero (Lecce)

9. 4 Johan Taeldeman (Ghent)

10. 4 Mats Thelander (Uppsala)

11. 4 Juan Villena Ponsoda (Málaga).

As part of the activities of the Network, three workshops (in Nijmegen, Ghent, and Heidelberg) and an open conference (in Reading) were held. The Network also organised a summer school for Ph.D. students (in Málaga). A series of publications relating to the theme of the Network has already appeared: a special issue of Sociolinguistica (10, 1996) edited by Auer, Hinskens, and Mattheier; a special issue of Folia Linguistica (22/1–2) edited by Auer in 1998; the volume Dialect and Migration in a Changing Europe edited by Mattheier (Frankfurt, etc.: Lang, 2000) and a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language edited by Kallen, Hinskens, and Taeldeman (145, 2000).