The SOCRATES project investigates the application of self-organisation methods, which includes mechanisms for self-optimisation, self-configuration and self-healing, as a promising opportunity to automate wireless access network planning and optimisation, thus reducing substantially the Operational Expenditure (OPEX) and improving network coverage, resource utilisation and service quality. Fundamental drivers for the deployment of self-organisation methods are the complexity of the contemporary heterogeneous access network technologies, the growing diversity in offered services and the need for enhanced competitiveness.SOCRATES' technological focus is on the self-configuration and self-optimisation of site and radio resource management parameters of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE). Directed by a set of use cases where the application of self-organisation methods are anticipated to have a significant potential, novel methods for efficient and effective self-organisation are developed, with due attention given to the retrieval and processing of the required measurements.Self-organisation in wireless access networks is a challenging topic: besides the intrinsically difficult issues concerning measurement and control, the project faces highly complex systems with a multitude of tuneable parameters and intricate interdependencies.As part of the project a validation and demonstration of the developed methods for self-organisation is carried out through extensive simulation experiments, assessing the achievable cost reductions and performance enhancements. The implementation and operational impact of the developed concepts and methods is investigated by analysing the residual radio network planning process, the operations, administration and maintenance architecture and the protocol interfaces.