The general aim of the INECHD is to strengthen collaborative interdisciplinary research and knowledge transfer on early childhood health development and well-being. Recent research from numerous disciplines clearly highlights the importance of early childhood development (pregnancy to school entry) for the prevention of long term health and social adjustment problems. Large interdisciplinary-international research projects are needed to understand the interplay between bio-psycho-social mechanisms and to find effective preventive interventions. The network brings together partners from three continents: Europe (University College Dublin-Ireland and Inserm, France), North America (Laval and Montreal universities in Canada) and South America (Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile) to initiate, reinforce and extend research and knowledge transfer collaborations. Leaders of the program have extensive experience of longitudinal-experimental studies and international collaborations. Staff exchange will enable partners to share data banks from large population-based longitudinal studies and experimental interventions, plan new studies and develop a web-based tool to transfer best practice knowledge to service providers and policy makers in four of the European Community languages: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. Over a four year period a total of 48 researchers will benefit from secondments. European researchers will spend a total of 200 months in North and South America, while South and North Americans will also spend a total of 200 months in Europe. An emphasis will be placed on training early career researchers for international and interdisciplinary longitudinal-experimental studies on early childhood development.