Research in geriatric medicine developed in the Nordic countries in the 1950s, following the tradition from the United Kingdom. Quite early, longitudinal epidemiological studies of ‘normal’ ageing emerged. Now there are chairs in geriatric medicine at many of the medical schools. Experimental gerontology came much later, typically scattered in a variety of medical school departments. There is only one chair in gerontology (in Tampere). Two major research undertakings have emerged in recent years, the Danish Centre for Molecular Gerontology, and a cluster of research groups at the Division of Geriatrics at the Karolinska Institutet. Other research groups are found in Denmark at the universities in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Odense; in Finland at the universities in Jyväskylä, Kuopio, Tampere and Turku; and in Norway at the university in Trondheim. These activities are reviewed country-wise.