The Main Goals of the Project "Social Trends" The acceptance of the Czech Republic into the OECD and its potential membership in other international organizations (NATO, the European Union), emphasizes the country's delay in comprehensively and objectively monitoring social development on the basis of research which adopts high international standards of data collection and analysis. To this point no institution in the Czech Republic has been concerned with such a complex task. The Social Trends Project is a reaction to the domestic, as well as international demand for synthesizing reports on social development. Its main goal is the publication of representatively prepared bi-annual reports published first in Czech and then also in English. These reports will map the development of the country from economic, social, demographic, and political standpoints. In an attempt to quickly fill information gaps, eight-page bulletins will be published regularly throughout the year under the title "Social Trends - Information and Analysis". Distribution of the Social Trends project bulletins includes both the professional, as well as non-professional interested public, members of both houses of the Czech Parliament, public relations and other ministerial departments, press agencies and all other forms of the media, institutions of higher education, and selected banks and corporations. A series of studies, "Social Trends - Working Papers" - another product of the project Social Trends - is addressed primarily to professionals and students in the social sciences (sociologists, economists, political scientists, etc.). In these studies the members of the team present the results of analyses of important social, economic, demographic, and political phenomena and processes. In contrast to the bulletins and other publications, the Working Papers are studies which delve deeper into interpretations of relevant theories that have guided the research, as well as into the results of data analyses. Working Papers also go into greater detail in the presentation of the applied methods of data analysis. The Social Trends project receives its core financial support from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic. The "academic" budget of the project, while being quite significant, cannot completely cover all expenses, especially where surveys and publicity are concerned. This is mainly because Social Trends project intends to appeal to a much wider domestic, as well as international public than to which normal research projects are commonly oriented. Thus, the project is trying to attain additional resources. We offer potential sponsors the opportunity to place their logo, advertisement, or express our thanks for support in some other way, in all of its publications (Czech and English bulletins, Czech and English versions of the annual reports), and at regular press conferences.