The consortium is composed of 11 national and regional organizations, each running a programme in ICST. The focus is long-term transformational research. Its principal objective is to reinforce the transnational collaboration between Member States through the funding of transnational research projects.The scientific scope of this ERANET is wide, but the intention is to select from this area, few focused, emergent themes of common interest, with the potential to lead to significant breakthroughs. The call topics will be selected by the consortium on a yearly basis to maintain a high flexibility. The topic-selection procedure defined in CHIST-ERA initiative will be employed. The research agendas to be developed by the FET Flagship initiatives will feed into this topic selection process, to establish a close connection first to the Flagship preparatory actions and from 2013 onwards to the Flagship initiatives.CHIST-ERA II aims at overcoming the fragmentation of long-term ICST research along national lines and thus creates synergy to amplify the activities of the national and regional agencies, to fulfil the needs and reinforce the strengths of the European ICST research community.CHIST-ERA II is the follow-up of the ERA-Net CHIST-ERA (www.chistera.eu), the first call of which was closed on 5 November 2010.Inside CHIST-ERA an efficient common framework has been implemented that will serve as a base for CHIST-ERA II, completed by work dedicated to improve continuously the processes, according to the lessons learned from the successive calls.In addition CHIST-ERA II aims also at implementing a follow-up of the funded projects, in organising a CHIST-ERA annual conference where projects will present their goals and achievements to researchers, national funding agencies, Flagships communities and other stakeholders. These CHIST-ERA conferences will include a strategic conference where the selected topics for the next call will be refined.