Ageing, Environment and Functioning (ENVIS-AGE)
Table of contents
Project description
We are a multi-disciplinary coalition of 28 excellent senior and mid-career researchers, and 32 early career researchers aiming to clarify how the potential for healthy and active ageing can be best put into operation. The ENVIS-AGE is a highly unique research area and one of the largest collaborative research networks in its field in Europe.
ENVIS-AGE furthers JYU’s research into biological and environmental influences underlying functional capacity during ageing. Our key research topics include functional capacity, active ageing, outdoor mobility, biological ageing, person-environment interactions, gerontological rehabilitation, antimicrobial resistance, diagnostics and biomolecular systems.
Our aim is to lay the groundwork for evidence-based solutions that harness the potential of healthy and active ageing, and support optimal recovery from illness.
Our essential collaborator is the Central Finland Wellbeing Services County, with which we have three joint tenure track professorships. The professorships will facilitate the implementation of research results in health care. Developing the Central Finland Biobank is our joint effort.
The ENVIS-AGE profiling area is led by Professor Taina Rantanen, with Professor Lotta-Riina Sundberg serving as deputy director.
Focus areas
The ENVIS-AGE comprises three focus areas which form a continuity ranging from human functional capacity, physical activity and living environments to biological processes underlying responses to environmental exposures, such as physical activity, nutrition, physical environment, and microbes.
1: Promoting functioning through physical activity in old age
The goal is to renew and develop research of functional capacity, physical exercise, and rehabilitation of older people.
2: Environment and ageing
The goal is to establish a new interdisciplinary research area on the role of different environments in functional ability changes in old age, including influences of social, build, natural and microbial environments.
3: Biological influences on health, functioning and ageing
The goal is to discover biological mechanisms that can improve health and functioning when growing old. This focus area joins together our expertise in microbiology, virology, cardiometabolic diseases, metabolism and biological ageing. Our focus will be on identifying preventive approaches that support healthy ageing and optimal recovery from ill health.
