IMMF is part of the University of Veterinary Medicine (VUW), Vienna, which is itself under the Austrian Ministry of Science. IMMF is organized as a research and education unit. The research unit consists of two groups: Food Microbiology (Prof. M. Wagner) and Chemistry. A total number of 15 employees have permanent position, in addition to a number of post-docs and postgraduate students. IMMF is partially financed by selling service to national and international food industries. IMMF works with diagnosis of food borne pathogens and molecular typing of milk borne pathogens. Since 1986, IMM has been conducting a national Listeria surveillance program. It also services a national Listeria type culture collection (human, animal and foodstuff) and a national sub-typing database. (Martin Wagner, Kristina Kropil)