The Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP) is part of Lausanne University Hospital, one of the five university hospitals in Switzerland. The University Hospital of Lausanne is linked to the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne (UNIL). The IUMSP is one of the leading public health centres in Switzerland and Europe. The current priority research fields are related to three main areas: the epidemiology and prevention of cancer and cardio-metabolic diseases, the organization of health services, mainly in the fields of services for ageing societies and quality of care, and biostatistics and quantitative methods. These research lines include the development of new areas such as public health genomics, social epidemiology, evaluation of screening strategies, epidemiology of frailty, life-course epidemiology, transition epidemiology, etc. The IUMSP is embarked in various collaborations with several partners. These include other departments of the University hospital and other faculties at the University of Lausanne, several Departments of public health at the cantonal (Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valais, Jura), as well at the federal levels (mainly Swiss Federal office of statistics, Swiss Federal office of public health, Swiss Federal Office of Food Security and Veterinary Affairs and the Swiss Federal office of social insurance). International links include selected Governments (Seychelles) and international organisations like the World Bank, the World Health Organisations and UNAIDS.