I was asked recently to write down what I thought the priorities were for the research agenda on ageing, and how society is shifting and needs to shift in response to longevity and our ageing population. Here’s the tweet version (thread) #gerotwitter
The changes we need to see to respond to the age shift in our society are big and they are radical. And so the research agenda on ageing needs to be just as big and just as radical.
We need economists, demographers, geographers, political scientists, behavioural psychologists, organisational psychologists, sociologists, evaluation specialists, designers, philosophers and and and.
We need to be generating the sort of compelling evidence that inspires hearts, but also the sort that convinces heads, and the sort that opens coffers.
We need research that works in close partnership with decision-makers, that directly helps them answer their questions: Why should I change? What should I change? And how can I do it?
We need research that celebrates what is wonderful about ageing, but also research that gets angry about what is unequal and unfair.
We need research that looks to the future, to a population that is more diverse, in ethnicity, in sexual orientation, in job history, in family structure.
And we also need research with long memories, that pulls learning from previous governments’ ageing strategies into the present.
We need research that works with people, that doesn’t prescribe from on high but that understands what it really means to be ageing in Britain today and what people and communities know would help make it better.
And we need big thinking with big ideas, that don’t just help us do things a bit better, but help us rewrite the rules of the game.
Because the game we have at the moment - the game that says being old is simply either wizened vulnerability or sky-diving at 103, the game that pits young against old in a phoney war - is a game none of us will win.
This is a research agenda that is complex, cross-disciplinary, it’s long-term, and expensive.
But if we are going to stop wasting our longer lives, wasting this gift of more time, then the time to try has to be now. (Thread ends.)
But if we are going to stop wasting our longer lives, wasting this gift of more time, then the time to try has to be now. (Thread ends.)
