The project was overseen by a project group throughout its various phases and stages. This group also acted as an editorial board for the project's end-products

Five conferences were organised around historical moments, with presentations by noted historians or political figures who were asked to look at various developments in the selected year from a comparative rather than national perspective, followed by discussion groups using the invited experts as a resource.

The participating local teams then gathered suitable primary and secondary source material relating to their region on each selected 'turning point year', and then edit and organise them, produce summaries of their selected texts (including some direct quotes) and provide a translation into either English, French, German or Russian.
 

Source material here included:

  • Extracts from key documents (diplomatic despatches, treaties, minutes and memoranda from important meetings, official reports, official statistics, personal letters, extracts from diaries, memoirs, etc);
  • Examples of relevant newspaper headlines and articles;
  • Extracts from audio-visual material for the later years;
  • Original photographs and lithographs relating not only to particular events but also to everyday life;
  • Posters and political pamphlets;
  • Photocopies of relevant memorabilia (e.g. people's ID Cards and passports, etc.)
     

Training activities

Training activities helped bridge the gap between academic presentations and teaching practice in the classroom. They helped implement teaching material, linking teaching methods and evaluation, and served to integrate the European dimension in teaching by comparing different programmes about European history and the use of historical sources to develop values and aspects of citizenship.

The local or regional teams were given support from small teams of experts to produce booklets and/or CD-ROMs for local use in schools. The project group/editorial board, with technical back-up, decided on what should be selected from all of the materials put together by the local teams for inclusion in the end-products published by the Council of Europe.