A new research project under the Horizon 2020 health call has been launched to promote mental well-being in the ageing population.

Medit-Ageing is funded by the European Commission, with financial support from the University of Geneva (Swiss State Secretariat for Education Research & Innovation), and will run for five years from 2016 to 2020.

The project will investigate the effectiveness of a variety of interventions on healthy ageing, with a key focus on mental health and well-being including Alzheimer’s disease and its mechanisms.  Researchers will conduct clinical trials involving patients with existing subjective cognitive decline, expert meditators and participants from the general public over the age of 65.

The project is co-ordinated by Inserm (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) based in Caen, France, with consortium partners in France, UK, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland.

As an official partner of the project consortium, Minerva has received funding to manage the Communications and dissemination work package.

The other eight work packages within the project will cover Meditation; Lifestyle; Attention and Emotion; together with Cognition & Wellbeing; Biomarkers; Coordination & Movement; Communication and Clinical Trial.

Director of Minerva, Rhonda Smith, says: “We are delighted to announce our involvement in this study and look forward to working with our consortium partners.  We hope through our research to make a valuable contribution to health policy discussions and forward-planning around the challenge of caring appropriately for our ageing global population, now and in the future.”