The European Commission calls on EU Member States to develop and pursue a common vision on how to coordinate research at EU level in the field of ageing. The call has as main objective a Joint Programming Initiative on ageing populations focuses in research areas in order to help older people remain active for as long as possible, in good health and with a better quality of life and how to make our future care systems sustainable.

The Recommendation adopted by the Commission entitled "More years, better lives, the challenges and opportunities of demographic change" will develop its common strategic research agenda on the ageing population over the coming months with the assistance of prominent experts. This agenda will be implemented through joint actions and projects involving a substantial commitment of funding and participation from involved countries. The European Commission will provide financial support for the coordination of the initiative, which is expected to start delivering concrete results after 2012, such as science based recommendations for adapting pension systems based not only on age but on people's capacity to work. This Recommendation is one the measures to help older people as well as the conclusions recently adopted by the high level Steering Group, in which all the stakeholders combine forces at European scale to commit advancing innovation in active and healthy ageing.

The Recommendation includes actions such as identifying and exchanging information on relevant national programmes and research activities as well as exchanging best practices, methodologies and guidelines; identifying areas or research activities that would benefit from joint coordination; considering the changing needs of elderly people when defining the objectives for ageing research programmes; sharing existing research infrastructures or developing new facilities such as coordinated databanks; encouraging better collaboration between public and private sectors; and creating networks between centres dedicated to demographic change and population ageing research.

With this initiative, it will provide a major contribution to the European Innovation Partnership for Active and Healthy Ageing and the Digital Agenda for Europe. It complements ageing related research activities in the Seventh Framework Programme, the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme.