After having succesfully finished the FLOSS-project, MERIT/Infonomics has started a new research project on open source software, which will run till 2006: "FLOSS-POLS will work on three specific tracks: government policy towards open source; gender issues in open source; and the efficiency of open source as a system for collaborative problem-solving. All areas will have a focus on studying the impact of policy and providing policy recommendations. The first track comprises three survey-based studies: on interoperability; user needs in open source e-government; and open source as a skills development environment especially important for SMEs. The second track will be the world?s first comprehensive study of gender issues in open source ? where women are hugely under-represented; based on ethnographic study, it will result in concrete policy recommendations. The third track will study open source as a productive networked organization through simulation models of collaborative (information-sharing) and selfish (information-selling) agents. Overall, there is a strong emphasis on feedback to and from the user (government) community, through a series of topical workshops as well as supporting the organization of a major conference on open standards and open source in e-government." Among the consortium partners there is the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge (UK).

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