A few months ago, european activities in the field of microgravity research appeared as being an addition of single programmatic elements without enough logics, coordination and scientific background. Under the active pressure and guidance of many european scientists who became more and more aware of the basic interest of materials research in the microgravity environment, and due to the efforts of the ESA executive, the situation could evolve in a significant way, succeeding now in getting the official recognition of the necessity and content of a coherent european microgravity programme by both the ESA Council and the community of classical Space scientists. This presentation will deal with the scientific motivations of this new-born Programme through both the initial status and the most rational ambitions for future. The poirts of emphasis of the necessary multidisciplinary cooperative exertion together with the possible involvement of these scientists who could not derive benefit from any of the existing national programmes will then be stressed. At last the resulting priority objectives will be briefly reviewed before discussing the needed coordination with other european and non-european microgravity activities.