Background. Every 40 seconds, a person dies due to suicide somewhere in the world, and far more people attempt suicide. However, suicides are preventable.Although national suicide prevention strategies already exist in several countries, suicide prevention is very often reduced to some isolated actions implemented by a few organizations. To tackle a complex phenomenon like suicide, a multi-level approach is needed and many stakeholders need to be involved. Finally, decision-makers must be convinced to fund the implementation of actions. Methods. To promote suicide prevention in Europe, the Austrian national suicide prevention program SUPRA was selected as a best practice model for further dissemination in other countries under the European Union's Joint Action ImpleMENTAL. Results. SUPRA is a multi-level national suicide prevention programme based on the WHO recommendations for suicide prevention with the main objectives of ensuring support for risk groups, restricting access to means, raising awareness and developing media support, integrating prevention programmes into other health promotion activities and supporting research. The structured concept for implementation consists of 6 strategic, 18 operative goals and 70 actions (including target sizes and indicators). Finally, a suicide prevention starter package was defined with prioritisation of actions on regional and national level, that helped in convincing decision makers. Discussion. After a difficult start about 10 years ago, SUPRA evolved from a possible worst-practice example to a best practice example. A structured, comprehensive approach, broad stakeholder involvement and the use of synergies helped to achieving an astonishing number of results with surprisingly little financial input so far. Recommendations and learnings from 10 years of SUPRA were recently published as a deliverable of JA ImpleMENTAL to support other countries in developing their own national strategy.