We are entering the longevity era. Globally, people aged 65 and older now outnumber children under the age of five, marking a historic demographic transition. In China, 323.38 million people were aged 60 or above in 2025, representing 23 percent of the country’s population. Longer lives are not only transforming individual life courses; they are also reshaping health and care, families and communities, cities and infrastructure, work and retirement, technology adoption, financial and social security systems.
At the same time, longer lives are unfolding amid environmental hazards, rapid advances in emerging technologies, changing family structures, and growing pressures on health, care, and financial systems. These converging forces call for interdisciplinary approaches that move beyond traditional models of aging research and examine, from a life-course and systems perspective, how individuals, families, communities, cities, and societies can thrive and become more resilient in the longevity era.
In response to this defining challenge, NYU Shanghai is establishing The NYU Shanghai Global Institute for Longevity and Resilience. The Institute is a university-wide, interdisciplinary, and globally connected platform that brings together NYU Shanghai’s strengths in public health, the social sciences, psychology, neuroscience, urban and environmental studies, computer and data science, engineering, business, economics, finance, and public policy. Its mission is to generate interdisciplinary knowledge, support talent development, advance and evaluate responsible technologies, inform policy and practice, and build strategic partnerships that promote healthy longevity and resilience across the life course.
Anchored in Shanghai, rooted in China, focused on Asia as a key region for comparative research and training, and globally connected through NYU, the Institute will organize its work through four interconnected research Hubs: Healthy Longevity and Life-course Resilience; Earth Systems and Urban Resilience; Longevity Finance, Silver Economy, and Social Resilience; and Health Technology. Through shared research questions, responsibly governed data and methods, real-world research settings in Pudong, Shanghai, and China, comparative work across Asia and the NYU global network, and translation into policy and practice, the four Hubs will jointly explore how people can live longer and healthier lives and how societies can become more inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and resilient.