Ghent University (UGent) is a Belgian top 100 university founded in 1817, with more than 47.000 students and 15.000 staff members. It consists of 11 faculties, offering a wide range of courses and conducting in-depth research within a wide range of scientific domains.

The Department of Sociology is part of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, which carries values such as quality and capability, dynamics and innovation, democratization and accessibility, integrity and justice as its main priority. The Department of Sociology comprises several research groups, one of which is Hedera.

Hedera conducts research in the field of Health Sociology, Family Sociology and Social Demography and examines a wide range of topics in relation to their social context. In addition, Hedera has substantial experience in studying health issues from an institutional, macro-level comparative perspective. In VAX-TRUST, Ghent University team is the leader of work package 2 and participates in all other work packages.