Division

The Republic of Austria

The Kingdom of Belgium

The Czech Republic

The Federal Republic of Germany

The Kingdom of the Netherlands

Hereinafter referred to as ‘the Contracting Parties’,

DESIRING to further strengthen Europe’s and the Contracting Party countries’ position in research in the world, and to intensify scientific cooperation across disciplinary and national boundaries;

CONSIDERING a report by the European Commission to the European Council of 2001(Council Document 6997/01) which identifies population ageing and its social and economic challenges to growth and prosperity to be among the most pressing challenges of the 21st century in Europe, which points out serious infrastructure gaps in understanding individual and population ageing, and which then calls to ‘examine the possibility of establishing, in cooperation with Member States, a European Longitudinal Ageing Survey’ in order to foster European research on ageing;

BUILDING on the current prototype of a Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) which has been selected by the ESFRI roadmap process to be upgraded as one of the central research infrastructures of the European Research Area;

RECOGNISING that this new interdisciplinary, international, and longitudinal survey with unprecedented quality regarding coherence, breadth and international comparability will in the future be of great significance in many different fields of fundamental and applied sciences such as demography, economics, epidemiology, gerontology, biology, medicine, psychology, public health, health policy, sociology and statistics;

RECOGNISING that evidence-based public policy making requires an up-to-date data infrastructure;

EXPECTING other countries to participate in the activities undertaken together under the following Statutes;

HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS: