Vascular Ageing Glossary: unifying language for knowledge diffusion

Purpose: VascAgeNet is a European multidisciplinary collaborative network on vascular ageing funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST, CA18216). Multidisciplinary collaborations benefit from a common language and collective understanding of fundamental principles, concepts and techniques to strengthen communication among researchers within and outside the network and to improve readability of scientific outputs and their impact on the society [1]. Methods: The network agreed on the need for a vascular ageing glossary to promote a common language across the field. Experts from the network identified an initial list of terms and preliminary definitions. A dedicated team, including representatives from all Working Groups, was created to design the glossary development process, to facilitate its implementation [2] and to maximize outreach and dissemination. Results: Regular meetings of the dedicated team were conducted, and main decisions were agreed by all members. The key steps of the process for managing the creation and maintenance of the glossary were to determine: (1) the target audience; (2) a list of priority terms; (3) a template structure for definitions; (4) methods for collecting expert feedback; and (5) the dissemination plan. An implementation strategy was provided by the team for each point (Figure). Small groups of terms will be released on a regular basis and published openly at https://vascagenet.eu/. Conclusions: The strategy for the first Vascular Ageing Glossary has been successfully designed and developed within VascAgeNet. It will be a living document, available to the scientific community, which aims to unify the vascular ageing language.