The IAP research network and project was composed by taking advantage of existing competences and mutual affinities, developed by the partners throughout prior collaboration. The partners hold most of the expertise available in Belgium: each of them could bring in specific competence in particular domains of justice and share specific disciplinary and methodological expertise with other network members. As an emerging partnership, and following the specific complementary expertise of each partner, the choice was made, for the first program phase, to link each partner with a specific substantial (thematic or chronological) Work Package.

• Thematic Work packages: The project’s research strategy was to promote doctoral theses by new, young researchers in order to maximize original fundamental research: each of the Work Packages 1 to 5 was organised around specific projects carried out by a team of two doctoral researchers, being coordinated by their supervisors and a postdoctoral researcher attached to the IAP coordinator.
• Chronological Work Package: The WP6, involving the collaboration with and between the European partners (IRHiS, U. Lille 3, & VUA), was oriented at the (co-)organisation of international workshops and a joint international conference (with CEGESOMA).
• Transversal Work package: Finally, a transversal WP7 engaging all the partners was set up to stimulate fusion of disciplinary approaches, thematic issues, methodologies and technologies: it was centred around the development of a central online information system and internet portal for justice resources, Just-His.be (Just[ice]-Historical Information System). Just-His.be was meant to perform several functions at the same time: to provide a tool for the valorization of the project, to support the daily operations (communication and exchange of information) of the network, and to constitute a research instrument that truly aggregated the resources accumulated by the network members. As a joint WP, Just-His.be has achieved to become the central instrument of integration of the network. It played a crucial role in bringing the researchers together as one team, collecting and diffusing information throughout the network, offering structured data for quantitative or qualitative research and promoting new enterprises for the preservation, retrieval and analysis of disappearing documentation.
• Transversal Work package: in order to enhance the scientific output (WP8), frequent conferences were organized and two single IAP book series have been set up for the publication of the program’s results. The research program also played a pivotal role in the attraction of new research projects in the field of legal and justice history.