[en] COmmon Muon and Proton Apparatus for Structure and Spectroscopy (COMPASS) is a fixed target experiment at CERN dedicated to studies of the spin structure of the nucleon and of the spectroscopy of hadrons. During the years 2002–2004 and 2006–2007, the COMPASS collaboration has collected a large amount of data by scattering polarized 160 GeV/c muons on polarized ⁶LiD and NH₃ targets. These data were used to evaluate the gluon contribution to the nucleon spin. The gluon polarization (Δg)/g was directly measured from the cross-section helicity asymmetry of D⁰ mesons production in the photon-gluon fusion reaction. During 2008 and 2009, the world leading data sets were collected with hadron beams which are currently being analyzed using Partial Wave Analysis (PWA) technique. COMPASS is performing a search for J^PC-exotic mesons, glueballs and hybrids, through light hadron spectroscopy in high energy 190 GeV/c hadron-proton reactions using both centrally produced and diffractive events. Preliminary results from these searches are discussed