Renewal of research infrastructure grant to National E-infrastructure for Aging Research (NEAR)
We are happy to announce that the National E-infrastructure for Aging Research (NEAR) received the renewal of the research infrastructure grant by the Swedish Research Council (VR) for the period 2023-2028.
The National E-infrastructure for Aging Research (NEAR) started three years ago as a consortium including Karolinska Institutet, the universities of Umeå, Jönköping, Gothenburg, Lund, Uppsala, Stockholm, and the Blekinge Institute of Technology.
NEAR’s purpose is to empower aging research in Sweden by promoting high-quality research and giving substantial added values to the research field. This will contribute to the identification of sustainable intervention strategies for better health and care for older persons.
To this end, NEAR is harmonizing existing databases from 15 major population-based longitudinal cohorts on health and aging in Sweden and making project-specific datasets usable and available to the research community, as well as public health and private sectors.
Laura Fratiglioni, current NEAR Director, expresses her satisfaction and states:
This second grant allows us to consolidate and expand NEAR after the building phase that will be completed next year. We are aware of the challenges this new phase poses to the consortium and to us as researchers. However, we are confident that NEAR 2.0 will address all these challenges in the best way due to its strong scientific background, the consortium solidity and international profile, and its added values.