The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for universal access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education as well as healthy lives and the promotion of wellbeing for all at all ages. Renowned for its commitment to applying scientific knowledge to improve health and advance human progress, The Lancet is acknowledging this historic moment when ECD is being prominently included in the global development agenda by launching a special series. The series, prepared by 45 authors from 22 premier institutions around the globe, brings together advances in neuroscience, genetics, psychology, education with evidence of controlled trials of feasible interventions, providing a sound basis and call for action for countries and stakeholders to move forward with programming at scale. This new series arrives four years after the leading medical journal published its second series on Early Childhood Development, a two-paper contribution to international research in the field. The Lancet launched its first series on ECD in 2007, aiming to present new evidence on the causes and effects of social inequalities in the first years of every child’s life. As the American economist and Nobel laureate, James Heckman, stated to the UNICEF’s online TV channel on the launch of the second series: “Early investment, early stimulation and early strategies can essentially reduce the causes of later tragedies. The new evidence shows us now how the outcomes at one age were linked to the outcomes at an earlier age. The sooner we invest, the better”. ISSA is both honored and proud to host a presentation of the key messages of this three-paper series by two of the authors at its Annual Conference in Vilnius. The new evidenced-based advancements that will be presented respond to the main theme of this year’s conference: the profound impact that the new demographic changes and the economic challenges have in our societies around the globe. A digital version of the series will be available in English on The Lancet’s website from 5th October 2016. For more information on The Lancet ECD published series, click here To be part of ISSA 2016 Conference Early Childhood in Times of Rapid Change, register here