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As part of celebrations to mark 100 years of the IOC’s presence in Lausanne in June, IOC President Thomas Bach welcomed residents of the Swiss city to an open day at the organisation’s headquarters in Vidy.“The idea behind this open day was to show the population how we work,” he said. “We also wanted to welcome the people of Lausanne, as they have always given us a warm welcome. It’s a way of saying thank you.”On two guided tours, the President showed around 50 enthusiastic visitors the meeting rooms, his favourite spot in the cafeteria and even his office, as well as telling them a number of humorous stories.As part of increased collaboration between the IOC and INTERPOL to protect the integrity of sport through education and awareness programmes, as outlined in Olympic Agenda 2020, the first Partnership Development Meeting (PDM) was held on 16 June in Oslo (Norway). Norway was the first country to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions. The meeting enabled the IOC and INTERPOL to test the country’s readiness to confront competition manipulation within its borders. Participants, who included high-level representatives from the government, law enforcement agencies, sports betting authorities and sports organisations, responded to allegations of competition manipulation and developed a comprehensive and unified approach to combating them. PDMs are being developed for other countries, tailored to their own unique circumstances.On 28 July in Kuala Lumpur, the Executive Board of the IOC granted provisional recognition to the World Union of Olympic Cities to strengthen the two organisations’ collaboration in line with Olympic Agenda 2020. Founded in 2002 jointly by the city of Lausanne and the city of Athens, the World Union of Olympic Cities is the only association that brings together the cities which have organised, or will organise, the Olympic Games or Youth Olympic Games. Currently, 28 cities from 15 countries and three continents (America, Asia and Europe) are members of the Union (43 cities have hosted 52 editions of the Games in 25 different countries). The World Union of Olympic Cities offers a platform to facilitate dialogue between former, current and future host cities to ensure the continued positive impact of the Games. The Union also contributes to supporting Olympic cities in order to maintain positive and sustainable Olympic legacies and promote sports and healthy lifestyles.The World Union of Olympic Cities organises an annual summit known as the Smart Cities & Sport Summit open to every city interested in contributing to create a better life for future generations through sport in terms of urban development, social cohesion, health, solidarity and peace. Thanks to this new platform, the World Union of Olympic Cities can spread the Olympic values and promote projects and initiatives related to sport for healthier city living.The next Smart Cities & Sport Summit will be held in Lausanne on 12-14 October 2016. For more information, go to http://summit.olympiccities.org Below President Bach welcomes visitors to VidyThe IOC Olympic Studies Centre (OSC) has selected seven research projects under the second edition of the Advanced Olympic Research Grant Programme. The projects were selected based on their academic quality and significance with respect to the IOC’s priority fields of research. These grants will allow researchers to carry out their research projects, benefit from exchanges with the IOC administration and, if relevant, consult the OSC’s archives and resources in Lausanne. The results of their research must be submitted in June 2016. For its second edition, the programme has received 41 applications involving 110 researchers from 24 countries and five continents. The full list of the grants awarded is available at http://www.olympic.org/olympic-studies-centreOSC SELECTS RESEARCH PROJECTS16 OLYMPIC REVIEW