CHIST-ERA is a Consortium of nine national organizations, each running a national programme supporting its research community in long term Information and communication science and technologies (ICST). The Partner funding programmes cover a large majority of the research in Europe and a significant fraction of the field worldwide.The focus of CHIST-ERA is long-term transformational research. Its principal objective is to reinforce the transnational collaboration between Member States in challenging multidisciplinary research in the area of Information communication science and technologies and to integrate the related national research communities in Europe through the funding of transnational research projects and accompanying community building actions.Even if the scientific scope of this Eranet is wide, the intention is to select from this area a number of focused, emergent themes of common interest, with the potential to lead to significant breakthroughs where there is not sufficient critical mass in a single country, and launch each year one or two calls on different selected topics.This goal is served by three operational objectives, namely setting the basis for effective and durable coordination and cooperation of the Partner agencies, identifying and sharing areas of common interest and new ambitious research topics with potentially high impact on future EU industrial research and competitiveness, launching common calls for proposals and their assessment.CHIST-ERA aims at overcoming the fragmentation of long term ICST research along national lines and thus create synergy to amplify the activities of the national agencies, to contribute decisively to the development of a concerted scientific policy throughout the ERA, and to fulfil the needs and reinforce the strengths of the European ICST research community, so that it can be at the leading edge of world competition.