The physics programme of ALICE includes the following main topics: i) the study of the thermalization of partons in the QGP with focus on the massive charming beauty quarks and understanding the behaviour of these heavy quarks in relation to the stroungly-coupled medium of QGP, ii) the study of the mechanisms of energy loss that occur in the medium and the dependencies of energy loss on the parton species, iii) the dissociation of quarkonium states which can be a probe of deconfinement and of the temperature of the medium and finally the production of thermal photons and low-mass dileptons emitted by the QGP which is about assessing the initial temperature and degrees of freedom of the systems as well as the chiral nature of the phase transition.