The current paper presents an overview of the author’s PhD project (2006-2010), but opens with a more general issue, concerning the fundamental choices one has to make to start up a research project. The triad research object(s) – research question(s) – methodology(-ies) and their inherent interaction offer a conceptual framework that allows to highlight, step by step, the author’s specific project on internationalization in Belgian literary periodicals after the First World War.