Best Agers – Exploiting the Potential of Senior Citizens

Using the knowledge and experience of professionals in their primes to foster business and skills development in the Baltic Sea Region

With demographic change and the looming post-2007 economic crisis, the cities and regions of the Baltic Sea Region had (and still have) to find creative ways of disclosing and utilizing unused opportunities. One of these hidden potentials are the people in the prime of their lives – the so called “Best Agers” (defined in the project as people aged 55 and older).

The members of the 55+ generation are well-educated, motivated and healthier than ever. They are able to stay longer on the labour market and can share their knowledge and experience. In the Best Agers project the 19 partners (representing all sectors) formed a cross-generational innovation environment, where Best Agers work together with different age groups in the fields of business and skills development to generate new ideas and share their expertise and experience. Best Agers was approved as a strategic project in September 2009 in the second call of the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013. Individual project modules were financed by the German “Bundesprogramm Transnationale Zusammenarbeit”.

A follow-up project, “Best Agers Lighthouses“, was approved in 2012, building upon the results of “Best Agers”.

Foto: Perspektive Media / Best Agers Project