The 4th CPLOL Congress will take place in Paris from 2nd to 4th of June 2000. The RDC Commission in cooperation with the Executive Committee and the General Assembly defined the main topic and the scientific aims (Language - Quality and efficacy in speech and language therapy) as well as the general program (a morning session for the presentation and discussion of CPLOL achievements, a forum-debate entitled "Perspective on quality and efficacy in speech and language therapy", twenty communications in plenary session, permanent presentation of posters and the opportunity for European suppliers to exhibit logopedic materials). Furthermore, it was the first time an expert group was appointed to make propositions for the scientific program (oral communications). The call for papers and posters was disseminated in time via the journals of the national associations. The final program, decided around March/April, was addressed in due time to all the member countries and the congress promotion campaign started on September/October 99. Everything was undertaken in order to give this international event its European specificity. An evaluation will be necessary (role of the experts, decision to reduce on plenary sessions and so on).

An evaluation of the functioning of the database showed the necessity to proceed to a more professional managing.

All the members of the commission decided to go on working in that sense, encouraged by the fact that the development of information tools (internet for example) is liable to increase sensibly the more professionals will rely on bibliographic sources. In that perspective, several important objectives were agreed on in November 1998: improving the keyword list by taking into account several thesauri, enhancing the translation tasks, elaboration of a consistent protocol of indexation of articles; limitation of the number of indexors; looking for appropriate financing sources and means to sustain a more professional managing of the database.

During the plenary session of 7th November 98 in Paris, confirmed at the session of 23rd and 24th of April 99 at Amsterdam, the RDC Commission decided to delegate provisionally to a subgroup the task to draw up a precise project of making the database more state of the art (defining objectives, looking for partners and determining the role of everybody, budget) and to submit it to the European Commission in order to get substantial subsidies for its development. Since then this subgroup met twice (during November 99 and January 2000) with the temporary collaboration of Helen Baker and Sue Peppé charged with the drawing up of the proposal and with the submission of the application to the European Community.

Furthermore it was decided that the whole of the members of the RDC Commission would meet only once a year during General Assembly until revoked. At the moment it seems more effective to have small operational working groups with regard to the determined objectives.