Age needs one voice. Now it has:
Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
Age UK has 24 local volunteer committees, many of which engage with the academic sector in their area. They may participate in focus or discussion groups for research development, act as a portal for researchers to access the local older population or raise funds for research projects supported by Age UK/Research into Ageing.
Find out how to join a committee
Through our links with the East Midlands University Association, the East Midlands committees introduced funding for research travel bursaries in 2011. Some 15 applications were received from six of the ten East Midland Universities and seven awards were made.
Read more about the Age UK Research travel bursary
Age UK is a member of the UK Age Research Forum, which is a strategic partnership between government, research councils and charities that aims to make a positive difference to the lives of older people through research. We chaired the Forum between 2006 and 2010, we currently chair the Industry Sub-group and are a member of the Steering Committee. We work with most of the major funders of ageing research and have signed a memorandum of understanding with the New Dynamics of Ageing.
Find more information about UKARF
Through our membership of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Dementia Research (MAGDR), which was established following the 2009 Summit on Dementia Research, we are working with others to improve the volume, quality and impact of dementia research.
Other members include DH/NIHR, Research Councils, charities, the pharmaceutical sector and a former carer of someone living with dementia.
Read further information about MAGDR
We have national partnerships with the British Geriatrics Society, the British Society of Gerontology, the British Society for Research on Ageing and the British Council on Ageing.
We have international partnerships with the Alliance for Ageing Research (USA), the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, the International Federation on Ageing and the Gerontological Society of America. We work with the World Health Organisation on their Ageing and Health Initiative to develop knowledge transfer practice and policies.
FUTURAGE is a two-year project funded by the European Commission, under the Seventh Framework Programme, to create the definitive road map for ageing research in Europe for the next 10-15 years.
Experts and specialists from Europe and beyond are working together to develop the map, which will identify the main priorities on ageing and health from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It will be structured around four themes representing all of the major research disciplines (biogerontology, social and economic measures, environments of ageing and healthy ageing), and a fifth theme of user involvement.
The Age UK Research Department is co-leading the User Involvement theme with Age Platform Europe and, together with the Age UK local committees, is contributing actively to the project across all the themes.
Find out more about FUTURAGE
We warmly welcome the growing interest in the research community in the participation of users in the design and implementation of research projects. From time to time we collaborate with Higher Education Institutions on joint bids for research funding from trusts, companies or Research Councils or endorse bids for research which we assess to be of high quality and high potential impact in improving later life.
We support age-related research through joint funding other bodies.
Age-relating hearing loss is under-researched. We’re stimulating research in partnership with RNID through joint funding for four PhD Studentships in this field. The grants, awarded in 2009, are with the University College London, King’s College London, the University of Leicester and MRC Harwell. We work with the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) to encourage research in geriatric medicine through the award of Clinical Research Fellowships.
These may be joint funded between us, or BGS may fund the full cost with us administering grant awarding and management on BGS’s behalf. We currently have four Fellowships, two at Newcastle University and one each at the University of Edinburgh and Sheffield Hallam University.
We work closely with the Research Councils to develop the research agenda and funding mechanisms. In 2010, we contributed to the MRC-led strategy for ageing research “A Strategy for Collaborative Ageing Research”.
Find out more information on the strategy
In 2008, Research into Ageing and the BBSRC worked together on the ageing bladder and bowel initiative, which was designed to encourage more basic and translational research to increase understanding of the ageing bladder and bowel, and the processes that lead to incontinence, and thus to improve treatments and quality of life for older people. Both organisations made special calls for grant applications in this field and six research projects were funded as a result.
Looking for practical information and advice? Please visit Information & Advice.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for in this site or want to enquire about research funding or partnerships, including our collaboration in your research, please contact us research@ageuk.org.uk
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This factsheet, which is updated on a monthly basis, is the most up-to-date source of publicly available, general information on people in later life in the UK.
Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
Research Department Age UK Tavis House 1-6 Tavistock Square London WC1H 9NA
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