In 1999, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) funded a five-year programme of research into young people's sexual and reproductive health in poorer country settings.Entitled the Safe Passages to Adulthood programme, and co-ordinated jointly by the centre for Sexual Health Research at the University of Southampton, the Thomas Coram Resaerch Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London and the Centre for Population Studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the programme supports research to enable young people to improve their sexual and reproductive health. The programme is working to increase the research capacity of developing country partners and to generate new knowledge that will lead to the development of systematic guidelines for action at programme and policy levels.