VANDELS is a uniquely-deep spectroscopic survey of high-redshift galaxies carried out with the VIMOS spectrograph on the VLT. The survey has obtained ultra-deep optical spectroscopy of ~2100 galaxies within the redshift interval 1.0 < z < 7.0 on an area centred on the CANDELS UDS and CDFS fields.
In my talk I will first provide an overview of the survey, focusing on the scientific motivation, survey design and target selection. I will then summarize the main results that have been obtained so far using the combination of the VANDELS spectroscopy and the unique set of multi-wavelength data available for the galaxies. In particular I will show how we can perform for the first time a detailed study of the absorption line physics in individual galaxies, determining accurate stellar metallicities and outflows properties and ultimately star formation rates, dust content and total masses for galaxies during the peak epoch of assembly.