Projects related to ageing in Horizon 2020, Framework Programme for Research and Innovation

Introduction and objectives: The current population share of people in the age group of 75+ in EU28 in 2019 is 9.5% and has grown since 6.8% in 2001. Share increase in this age group is even bigger in less per forming countries such as Croatia (9.45% in 2019 and 5.3% in 2001), intensified additionally by emigration. Ageing population represents an evolving concern in many aspects of life. It influences economy, demography, intergenerational relationships, living arrangements, health care approaches and unsustainable health-care costs. All of these challenges triggered an increased interest in research of ageing in many disciplines. Advancement in medicine generated a plethora of new diseases among the ageing population that were not known before, comorbities being among the most challenging ones. Here we present the growing interest in the health research on this subject funded in EU programmes. We aim to determine the proportion of research on ageing within Horizon 2020 programme / Societal Challenges/Health (SC1). Methods. We searched the Calls for Proposals, projects and their results in the European Commission databases “Funding and Tenders” (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders), “Cordis” (https://cordis.europa.eu/search/en), H2020 Dashboard (https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/dashboard/sense/app /93297a69-09fd-4ef5-889fb83c4e21d33e) and others. Results. In Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018-2020 – Health, demographic change and wellbeing (SC1) word “Ageing” is mentioned ninety-six times. Twenty-nine calls were dedicated to ageing (out of 295) and approximately one third of the funded projects are related to ageing (341/1039). We will present the number of projects, EC contribution and results coming out from these projects ; publications together with their content analysis and intellectual property rights. We will show main areas of research, top funded projects, and geographical distribution of the participants. Conclusions. Ageing is a growing issue in various aspects and research fields. While research on ageing is present in the Horizon Framework Programme, the projects are scattered through various calls. The system for the monitoring of allocated funds, research topics, project results are overwhelming, but not harmonized nor easy to find. Based on the importance of ageing, but also other interand multi-disciplinary research fields, the systematic approach to tackle these issues are needed.