FET Flagships are science-driven, large-scale research partnerships pursuing a unifying goal of achieving major scientific and technological breakthroughs over a time period of approximately 10 years. In order to prepare these FET Flagships, Neelie Kroes will launch six so-called FET-Flagship Pilots. Each will deliver a FET Flagship proposal with a complete feasibility, strategic research roadmap and an implementation description by mid-2012. At that time two candidates are to be selected from the six pilots. The two fully-fledged FET Flagships are expected to start in 2013.