"With the use of more advanced, but difficult-to-cut materials, on ever-more sophisticated products, the need to further develop and utilise the particular capabilities of the energy beam (EB) processing techniques seem to become a key enabler for the European industry. Although they are of various nature, a set of key communalities can be identified among EB methods when considered as dwell-time dependent processes; this allows the treatment of EB processes under a unitary technology umbrella.In this context, and based on a multidisciplinary pool of knowledge, the STEEP ITN aims to establish a European research training platform to enable a holistic approach of the EB processing methods. A number of 28 academic/research and industry partners with multidisciplinary & complementary expertise will set the first common European training programme that will take the technology from the modelling & validation of its key aspects (i.e. beam footprint) to the development of simulation tools (i.e. beam path simulator) and the demonstration (e.g. on various EB workstations) by generating freeform surfaces.This wide breath of topics will be the vehicle to train European researchers in complementary (e.g. maths – material processing – computing – machine simulation/control) areas and environments (academic, industrial) of EB processes so that a sustainable evolution of this group of technologies is achieved."