The main focus of the program is oriented towards basic research, to acquiring new knowledge about the development of man and society in the earliest periods of Slovenian history. As the program is multi-layered, an important segment is represented by the creation and examination of new methods of research, the analysis of data bases and documentation systems, as well as gaining new knowledge about the settlement structures, social processes, and the economy and lifestyle of the populations that dwelled from prehistory to the early Middle Ages in the southeastern Alpine region.

The program incorporates the following contexts:

1. Paleolithic investigations: final phase of the Divje babe I project; multi-disciplinary research, analysis and publication of the new Mesolithic site at Viktorjev spodmol.
2. Neolithic and Eneolithic: wood sampling at the pile dwelling sites at the Ljubljansko barje; sample trenching and processing of the fine materials from the pile dwelling sites.
3. Bronze and Early Iron Ages: evaluation of the material finds and data from the sample trenching at upland settlements in the Dolenjska region.
4. Late Iron Age: collection and interpretation of archaeological sources concerning the history of the La Tene period and intra-regional studies of aceramic finds from the La Tene and Roman periods.
5. Roman period: topography and further completion of the database of archaeological sites in Ptuj; the artisan's quarter in Rabelčja vas; the romanization of western and central Slovenia; archaeological investigations of the high mountains in the Kamniške Alpe.
6. Late Antiquity: Late Antiquity settlement structure; Early Christian architecture; barbarian fragments within the context of the romanized substrata in the eastern Alpine area; investigations and processing of material finds from the Late Antiquity site at Tonovcov grad.
7. Early Middle Ages: typological chronology of the burial goods, typological chronology of settlement finds and research of settlement structures.
8. Epigraphy and Roman history: historical-philological commentary and evaluation of Strabo's Geography; further investigations of Roman inscriptions throughout Slovenia; history of Celeia in light of epigraphical monuments.
9. Paleo-ecological investigations: a study of the development of the paleo-environment in Slovenia and neighboring countries during the late quaternary - multi-disciplinary investigations will be focused especially on the areas of the Ljubljansko barje, Bela krajina and the Bled area.

Our investigations will be built on data acquired through archaeological excavation of sites, cemeteries, topographic surveys, revisions of the archaeological material finds in museum depositories and the collection of old archaeological documentation for the archives. Standardized methods will be applied for the drawn and written documentation, and wherever applicable, the documentation process will be further supplemented with an informational procedure all to the form of a classified digital record. The archaeological analyses will be further supplemented with investigations of the paleo-environment. Archaeological sediments will be correlated and the influence human activity upon the environment determined. The appropriate anthropological, osteozoological, palynological, carpological, sedimentological, physical and chemical analyses will also be carried out. The pertinent infrastructure (for the Natural and Cultural Heritage) will execute the research program, as field research, laboratories and databases are essential for the successful rendition of such a program. The work of the infrastructure will encompass archaeological documentation systems (ARKAS, ZBIVA, LIBERA, the primary catalogue of archaeological literature, the collection of written documentation, the collection of illustrated documentation, the collection of material finds, epigraphic collection), field research (mobile documentation centers, laboratories).