The challenges facing aging societies transcend the boundaries of any specific discipline and involve multiple areas spanning biological, clinical, sociobehavioral, and economic domains. The National Institute on Aging has six center programs addressing a range of important aging-related topics within these disciplines, but until now, collaborations between center programs has been limited.
To catalyze multidisciplinary efforts in research related to aging and older adults, the NIA has launched the Research Centers Collaborative Network (RCCN). The RCCN will be co-organized by the American Federation for Aging Research and the Wake Forest School of Medicine and will promote collaboration among the:
- Alzheimer’s Disease Core and Research Centers
- Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging
- Nathan Shock Centers for Excellence in the Biology of Aging
- Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers (OAICs)
- Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR)
- Roybal Centers for Translational Research on Aging
The initiative, which was awarded in April, provides a new mechanism to facilitate research across centers programs. The RCCN will support conferences, pilot programs, early career faculty education, resource identification tools, and program development to ensure that the NIA centers can effectively collaborate and benefit from one another’s expertise, tools, and resources.