The ELI project, a collaboration of 13 European countries, it comprises four pillars:

• High Energy Beam Science devoted to the development and usage of dedicated beam lines with ultra short pulses of high energy radiation and particles reaching almost the speed of light. This part of ELI will be realized in Prague (Czech Republic)
• Attosecond Laser Science designed to conduct temporal investigation of electron dynamics in atoms, molecules, plasmas and solids at attosecond scale (10-18 sec.). Szeged (Hungary) will host the short pulse pillar of ELI.
• Laser-based Nuclear Physics pillar will be built in Magurele (near Bucharest/Romania) and will focus on laser-based nuclear physics. While atomic processes are well suited to the visible or near visible laser radiation, as a third pillar ELI-NP will generate radiation and particle beams with much higher energies, brilliances suited to studies of nuclear and fundamental processes.
• Ultra High Field Science that will explore relativistic laser-matter interaction in an energy range where totally new phenomena like radiation dominated interaction become dominant.

In its mission ELI will practice a vigorous technology transfer to European SMEs and large firms. High on ELI agenda will be the training of aspiring scientists and engineers in the numerous disciplines associated with the Extreme Light.

ELI-NP will create a new European laboratory to consistently investigate a very broad range of science domains, from new fields of fundamental physics, new nuclear physics and astrophysics topics, to applications in material science, life sciences and nuclear materials management.