Europe’s first joint call for ageing research has been launched by national funding agencies in Canada, Finland, France, Israel, Luxembourg, Latvia, Romania, Sweden and the UK. The call is part of the European Commission’s Active and Healthy Ageing Innovation Partnership, which aims to increase healthy life expectancy across the EU by two years by 2020.
The money will fund research by multidisciplinary teams drawn from up to five of the partner countries, under the umbrella of the European Research Area in Ageing 2 (ERA-AGE 2) programme.
Alan Walker of Sheffield University in the UK, who is Director of ERA-AGE 2 said, “This is a giant step for ageing research. It is Europe’s first such programme and is aimed directly at providing the research knowledge that will help European countries to respond to population ageing."
Researchers from all disciplines are eligible to apply to carry out work on “Active and healthy ageing across the life course” with the aim of generating new insights into the factors that enable individuals to live actively and healthily into later life.
Janet Allen, Director of Research, at the UK partner agency the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council said, “Partnerships between researchers across Europe are very valuable. It is hoped that ERA-AGE 2 will bring together some of the best expertise and resource from across Europe.
ERA-AGE 2 is inviting applications from multidisciplinary research groups representing three to five funding countries. Stage-one pre-proposals can be submitted until 3 October 2011 under three areas:
- Generate new knowledge on the biological, clinical, behavioural, social and environmental factors that enable individuals to live actively and healthily into later life;
- Explore comparatively different models, methods, approaches and good practices in societal responses to increased longevity which emphasise both social inclusion and sustainability;
- Engage in effective knowledge exchange activities that will assist European and other countries to achieve the goal of increasing healthy life expectancy by two years by 2020
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