50 years ago, ECSC programmes have introduced collaborative scientific and technical research on a European scale. They have created the foundations for the European Research framework programmes (FP). The ECSC treaty has expired. A new research programme, complementing the FP of the European Union: the Research Fund for Coal and Steel, is born. The Steel Technology Platform will secure its full coordination with all other available steel research instruments. All of this constitutes a very tangible and lively legacy of the ECSC, in a more global world, in the light of new priorities of the European Union, of the objectives of Lisbon and Barcelona, and finally of the today reaffirmed strategic importance of the knowledge-based economy.