We propose to search for thermal dust emission from
circumstellar discs, debris or clouds around nearby pulsars, that
are the byproducts or progenitors of planet formation.
It is suggested that planets can form or survive around old
millisecond pulsars and intermediate age slow pulsars, although,
so far, planets have only been detected orbiting millisecond
pulsars. Our main objective is to detect dust clouds or discs around
neutron stars in which planets can form by a similar mechanism
as in our solar system. In the case of the millisecond pulsar
PSR B1257+12, the disc most likely formed out of a companion
star which either was dynamically disrupted or evaporated by the
pulsar radiation. In the first case, the disc would surround a single,
in the second, most likely case, a binary pulsar. Discovery of a
circum-pulsar disc around a single or binary millisecond pulsar
could therefore allow to distinguish between the two models, and
discover  intermediate stages of evolution between evaporating
binary pulsars and isolated millisecond pulsars with
planetary bodies in quasi-circular orbits, such as PSR B1257+12.
In the case of ordinary radio pulsars, planet-forming discs
may also exist, if some material of the envelope of the
progenitor was not ejected in the supernova in which the
radio pulsar formed, but fell back to form a post-supernova
disc. Detection of such discs, ideally for pulsars of different
ages, would have implications not only for the prospects
of forming planets but also for our understanding of the
basic supernova explosion mechanism. In these different
pulsars we aim to deduce the radiating mass of dust and to
compare its physical properties to that of the dusty discs around
main-sequence and post-main sequence stars revealed by IRAS
and ground-based infra-red measurements.