Healthy ageing, engineered across the Nordics.

NordicActAge is a cross-Nordic research and implementation initiative focused on outcomes — improving healthy ageing through rigorous research, shared data and a relentless, iterative process.

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5 Nordic countries united

100,000 Older adults moving — within 8 years

5 bn NOK saved every year, at scale

A historic demographic shift — and a Nordic opportunity.

More people are living longer than ever before. But our societies are still organised around old ideas about ageing. Rising multimorbidity, functional decline and pressure on health and social care call for groundbreaking, structural solutions — not isolated projects.

The Nordic countries are uniquely placed to answer: strong public health systems, digitally mature populations, world-class registries, and a deep tradition of collaboration between academia, municipalities, civil society and private actors. Together, they can become a global living laboratory for active ageing.

How NordicActAge works

Not a one-off study — a continuous engine. We look at the evidence, build real-world execution with communities, measure the outcomes, and feed everything back to scale across the Nordics. Rinse and repeat.

01

Look at the evidence

Synthesise what works, for whom, in which contexts and through which mechanisms — building a shared Nordic programme theory and position paper.
02

Co-create the execution

Design and run real-world programmes with municipalities, clinics, home care and civil society — co-created with the people they serve.
03

Measure the outcomes

Track physical function, participation, quality of life and cost-effectiveness with rigorous, comparable Nordic data.
04

Scale & repeat

Feed results back into the blueprint, refine the approach, and expand it to new communities and countries across the region.

Three areas where the centre is unique

Mechanisms

Understanding how physical activity actually shapes ageing, multimorbidity, frailty and cognition — the science that everything else rests on.

Co-creation & implementation

Real-world studies embedded in municipalities, local communities, home care and long-term care — designed with practitioners and older adults themselves.

Economics & policy

Evaluating cost-effectiveness and sustainability, and turning evidence into policy recommendations tailored to the Nordic welfare model.

The goal, in plain numbers

Within eight years, in every municipality we work with:

100%of citizens aged 60+ with access to physical activity

100kolder adults actively participating

20+municipalities & regional actors engaged

5 bnNOK saved per year at scale

Our first 6–12 months

1 Network & partnerships
20+ municipalities and partners across every Nordic country, all sectors at the table.
2 Participatory design
Co-creating priorities with older adults, practitioners and user groups from day one.
3 Knowledge & shared agenda
A Nordic position paper and 3–4 flagship research challenges for the next five years.
4 Funding readiness
At least one joint Nordic grant application and a multi-year funding roadmap.
5 Collaboration platform
A shared digital backbone connecting every partner, project and idea.
6 Visibility & legitimacy
Public channels, conference presence and early engagement with policymakers.

Flagship directions on the table

Ideas raised by the network in Copenhagen — the seeds of the centre's first large-scale work.

Framework

Nordic Blueprint for Physically Active Communities

A scalable framework for embedding lifelong physical activity into local systems — ultimately tested in a large Nordic implementation study.

Knowledge

A Nordic Programme Theory

A living knowledge backbone synthesising what works, for whom, in which contexts and through which mechanisms.

Technology

AI-supported activity matching

Matching individuals to the right local activities based on health, preferences and capacity — supporting clinicians and citizens alike.

Digital

Digital mastery & self-management

Apps, coaching and nudges built on the Nordics' strong digital health infrastructure.

Mapping

Nordic catalogue of interventions

A state-of-the-art position paper mapping initiatives across all five countries — and the gaps between them.

Impact

Nordic impact model for active ageing

Demonstrating how coordinated cross-sector investment produces measurable societal returns.

The collaborators

Universities, hospitals, municipalities, sport bodies and private partners across the Nordics. Select any organisation to meet the collaborators behind it.

Finland is being onboarded, and more partners across Iceland and the Faroe Islands continue to join. This is a growing coalition.

Pioneering municipalities participating

The first local communities putting active ageing into practice — with 20+ municipalities and regional actors being recruited across the Nordics.

Help us make it real

NordicActAge is raising 150 million NOK to fund the research, evaluation and large-scale implementation of physical activity for older people across the Nordics.

Our strategy is simple: funding is built, not just applied for. Smaller projects become deliberate building blocks toward a coordinated, large-scale Nordic centre — so every contribution compounds.