  An overview of a microscopic framework based on the Hartree-Fock description
of the mean field is presented which, starting from an effective interaction
allows a description of collective motions. A study of the isotope shifts in
the Pb region illustrates the importance of the effective interactions and
points to their limitations. Such forces should be improved in order to achieve
a better description of nuclei properties especially with the coming
availability of exotic beam facilities. The coupling of collective quadrupole
and octupole degrees of freedom in $^{194}$Pb is analyzed within the Generator
Coordinate Method, which represents a step beyond the simple mean-field
approximation. As a last example, we present a study of nuclear rotations.
First we discuss results on superdeformed rotating bands in $^{192}$Hg,
$^{194}$Hg and $^{194}$Pb obtained without including a treatment of pairing
correlations. Preliminary calculations are also presented with these
correlations included as well as an approximate projection on nucleon number.
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