The Ministry of Culture shall initiate a research program on civil society and voluntary sector in the period 2013 -2017. The research program will further build on the main research themes and the virtual platform in the research program "Virtual centre for research on civil society and voluntary sector", which ended on 30.06.13. The rights to the virtual platform, including the website www.sivilsamfunn.no, and the domain are the property of the Ministry of Culture. The research program will be based in a committed relationship between several institutions/environments, and a multi disciplinary group of researchers collaborating in a network, A proposal for solving the assignment must be submitted as a comprehensive proposal for the development and operation of a virtual centre and a plan for how the main research themes of the project will be solved.