About

The Ageing Initiative is

1. Transforming Oxford’s ageing research from department/division-specific research to a multidisciplinary effort, greatly enhancing quality and impact;
2. Promoting interdisciplinary ageing research in ageing through supporting both ongoing research and the establishment of new collaborative research projects;
3. Continuing the successful impact and knowledge exchange activities of existing ageing and new researchers.

Oxford has historically led ageing research in many disciplines. Indeed, research into ageing has featured at the University of Oxford for many years with the Chair of Geriatric Medicine (later restyled Clinical Geratology) being established in 1985, held by Professor Sir John Grimley Evans until 2002 and subsequently by Professor Alistair Buchan.

The Oxford Institute of Population Ageing was founded the following decade in 1998, with the first Professor of Gerontology in 2006. It has received funding from the ReseachCouncils, UKRI, major trusts and foundations, and donors.

The Oxford Dementia and Ageing Research (OXDARE), a consortium of clinical and basic scientists, based in 2 NHS trusts and 6 university departments links those working on various aspects of translational dementia and ageing research. OXDARE was formed by the NIHR’s Biomedical Research Centre to co-ordinate Oxford’s response to the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia in 2015, and is now funded by the NIHR Oxford Health BRC (a partnership between Oxford Health NHS Trust and the University of Oxford).

The biomedical Oxford ageing network, OxAgeN, was launched in 2015, and has received seminar funding from John Fell.

In addition, research on ageing is now conducted within Departments in all four of Oxford’s Divisions.

Research spans the cultural and societal consequences of an ageing population; understanding of ageing mechanisms; therapeutics for age-related diseases; population-level consequences of ageing in terms of city planning, education and economics; patterns of senescence across the tree of life; helping people live happily and healthily into old age.