The overall objectives of the INNWIND.EU project are the high performance innovative design of a beyond-state-of-the-art 10-20MW offshore wind turbine and hardware demonstrators of some of the critical components. These ambitious primary objectives lead to a set of secondary objectives, which are the specific innovations, new concepts, new technologies and proof of concepts at the sub system and turbine level.The progress beyond the state of the art is envisaged as an integrated wind turbine concept with i) a light weight rotor having a combination of adaptive characteristics from passive built-in geometrical and structural couplings and active distributed smart sensing and control, ii) an innovative, low-weight, direct drive generator and iii) a standard mass-produced integrated tower and substructure that simplifies and unifies turbine structural dynamic characteristics at different water depths.A lightweight smart blade design will be demonstrated on an appropriate scale relevant for rotor aeroelastics. The drive train innovations include a super conducting generator; pseudo magnetic drive train and a light weight re-design of the nacelle for reduced tower top mass. The superconducting generator technology and the pseudo magnetic drive technology will be demonstrated at relevant scales by participating industry.The concepts are researched individually at the component level but also at the wind turbine system level in an integrated approach. Their benefits are quantified through suitable performance indicators and their market deployment opportunities are concretely established in two dedicated integrating work packages.The consortium comprises of leading Industrial Partners and Research Establishments focused on longer term research and innovation of industrial relevance.The project addresses the heart of the Long Term R&D Programme of the New Turbines and Components strand of the European Wind Initiative (EWI) established under SET-Plan, the Common European Policy for Energy Technologies.