The Smart Ageing International Research Center was founded on 1 October 2009. In Japan, we are facing an unprecedented superaging society, and the importance and expectations of research on the medical science of aging have been increasing. Japan is the most markedly aging country in the world, and the trends in Japan are attracting particular attention from European countries and the US as well as other Asian countries. Several research institutions in Japan and overseas are carrying out research on aging from various aspects including medicine, epidemiology, sociology, and psychology; however, no institution is carrying out research and education on integrated aging science from the viewpoint of medicine, focusing on the entire lifetime from birth to death. Considering this background, the Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, which is the only institute specializing in the medical science of aging affiliated with a national university, established the Center with the aim of promoting international cooperative research on smart aging so that individuals can cope effectively with the changes brought on by aging and can, within society, mature intellectually. As an international research center, the purposes of the Center are to open up a new research field of integrated aging science to respond to the challenge of a superaging society and to contribute to the formation of a sustainable, highly mature society through state-of-the-art smart aging research. Therefore, the Center will promote interdisciplinary cooperative research, international collaborative research projects, and research collaborations with industry, as well as disseminate and exchange information by holding international conferences and symposia. The Center will also promote the establishment of NPOs for elderly people along with their participation, aiming at the creation of a smart aging society.
The Center consists of two divisions: gResearch and Development Division of Smart Agingh and gDivision of Strategic Planning of Smart Aging.h In the former division, technologies to support the development of sound brain functions and to prevent aging will be developed and disseminated by collaboration with industry and international interdisciplinary cooperative research. In the latter division, we will promote collaboration with overseas advanced research institutions and companies studying geriatrics through liaison activities, and develop social work programs, such as smart aging education, providing opportunities for senior citizens with enthusiasm for learning to serve as educational supporters for young scientists. By realizing an ideal relationship between universities and society in the superaging society, the Center will carry out original research and educational activities and create new smart-aging-related industrial applications.
- Fig. 1
The concept of gsmart agingh encompasses a positive acceptance of later stages of life as gdevelopment stages in an intellectually maturing life,h unlike negative concepts, such as anti-aging, that imply an unwillingness to accept or face later stages of life. It is a paradigm shift of the view of the aging society.
- Fig.2
Sketch of the new center building to be completed at the end of fiscal year 2010.
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