Societies across Europe are experiencing an explosion in the proportion of old individuals. Indeed, the proportion of individuals aged more than 65 has increased from around 10% in 1965 to 20% in 2019 and this increase is likely to continue in the future. With old-age comes increased chronic morbidities which requires long-term and costly care. These demographic changes pose a serious socioeconomic challenge for our region and new interventions and solutions will become critically needed to allow us to maintain our high standard of living. This network brings together European leaders in the field of aging research with the goal of finding solutions to these challenges allowing us a sustainable and long-term future of healthy aging across Europe.
Founding statement
The European Federation for Aging Research was founded in 2024 at Hellerup, Denmark, by the four national societies that, between them, represent the bulk of European researchers working on the biology of aging:
British Society for Research on AgeingBSRA · UKbsra.org.uk ↗
Dutch Society for Research on AgeingDuSRA · NLdusra.nl ↗
Deutsche Gesellschaft für AlternsforschungDGfA · DEalternsforschung.org ↗
Nordic Aging SocietyNordic · DKnordicaging.org ↗
The federation gives common voice to a scientific community whose work has, until now, advanced in parallel rather than in concert, and provides a single European interlocutor for the European Commission, the European Research Council, and the global aging-research community.
In Nature Aging
The federation's founding was announced in a Correspondence to Nature Aging in April 2026, signed by the four board members on behalf of EFAR. The article lays out the case for a coordinated European response to the biology of aging.
The European aging research landscape remains highly fragmented.Schumacher, Scheibye-Knudsen, Rasmussen & Kuipers, Nature Aging, April 2026
Scope & purpose
EFAR exists to federate European aging research; to coordinate a continental scientific voice on geroscience; and to advocate, with European funding bodies, for a dedicated European mechanism to support healthy-aging research at the scale the demographic challenge requires.
Membership is open to principal investigators, post-doctoral researchers, and institutions whose work bears on the biology, medicine, or societal consequences of human aging.
- Registered
- Hellerup, Denmark · CVR 45 01 95 94
- Founded
- 2024 · By four national societies
- Working language
- English
- Charter journal
- Nature Aging, April 2026
- Contact
- contact@agingfederation.eu
Apply for membership
An open call to European investigators of aging: principal investigators, post-doctoral researchers, and institutions.