On the 22nd and 23rd of February the kick-off meeting for the 2-year Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) project “Towards a National E-infrastructure on Aging Research – NEAR” was held. The aim of the project is to build a National E-infrastructure for Aging Research (NEAR) by coordinating the existing databases from major population-based longitudinal studies on aging and health in Sweden. The creation of NEAR should facilitate aging research in Sweden, increase international exchange and collaboration, and enhance research quality and generalizability of research findings. The 2-year project should investigate the different type of infrastructure architectures that are possible and to evaluate pros and cons for each solution.
The kick-off meeting was hosted by Prof. Laura Fratiglioni at the Aging Research Center and included the Principal Investigators of the studies participating to NEAR project and the key members of the SNAC-K database management group. On the first day of the kick-off meeting Prof. Fratiglioni presented the project to the NEAR steering committee followed by a discussion about aims of NEAR infrastructure and of the 2-year coordination plan.
On the second day of the meeting the members of the executive group and of the key members of the operational group were appointed by the steering committee. Thereafter, some of the participants at the meeting reported their experience in participating at the creation of coordinated databases. Lessons learned and suggestions were shared and discussed. The meeting concluded with a presentation concerning the possible database architectures envisioned for NEAR and a discussion regarding the next steps to be taken before the next meeting that will be held on the 7th of June 2016 .