The HIE-ISOLDE project proposal is a major staged upgrade to the existing REX accelerator facility at ISOLDE with the objective to provide radioactive beams up to 6MeV/u with a future option of going to 10MeV/u. The ambition is to make all isotopes produced at ISOLDE (>800) available as post accelerated beams. The beam quality will be much improved for ISOLDE users with the installation of a RFQ cooler, a new resonant laser ionization system and a renovated high resolution mass separator. New isotopes will be made available through target and ion source development. The driver intensity will be increased (5×), with a first increase coming from a faster cycling of the PS Booster and a later increase coming from the new Linac-4. We will in this contribution review the project and report on the present status of the staged proposal.