The FERMI@Elettra free electron laser will be realized in two principal phases. FEL-1 is designed to operate in the time domain and with two complementary operating modes: a) high stability and b) high intensity. FEL-2 is designed to operate in the frequency domain (high energy resolution) and relatively long photon pulses (~ 1 ps). These deign choices will yield a FEL source quite unique among the other FELs under construction or proposed for construction in Europe, USA and Japan. The initial FERMI science program is structured to allow experiments with different, and increasingly more demanding photon parameters. This plan will allow performing high quality experiments from the very beginning of the FEL1 and FEL2 commissioning. For these reason we plan the following order of experiments.