"One of the main unsolved problems in theoretical physics today is to reconcile the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics. The starting point of this proposal is a new background-independent theory of quantum gravity, which has been constructed from first principles as a sum over space-time histories and has already passed its first non-trivial tests. The theory can be investigated analytically as well as by Monte Carlo simulations. The aim is to verify that it is a viable theory of quantum gravity. Thus we want to show that it has the correct long-distance behaviour (classical Einstein gravity) and to investigate its short-distance behaviour in detail. We expect new physics to show up at the shortest distances, physics which might help us understand the origin of our universe and why the universe looks the way we observe today."