eight - A new policy perspective on ageing

Summary

This is the first excursion into what is boldly claimed to be a new science of ageing. Assertions of this nature are asking to be contested. But before the open season begins, let's be clear what is being suggested. Rather than a puffed-up claim of novelty, it is a simple recognition of a transition that is indisputably already under way. The main lines of change in the ageing research agenda have been plotted in Chapter One: more multi-disciplinary collaboration, a much broader than hitherto multi-disciplinarity, and an increasing explicit life course focus. This is not to suggest that all ageing research must follow this path. While it is essential to support single disciplinary inquiry, arguably, such research would benefit from a multi-disciplinary context. Nor is it claimed that this volume is the last word on the subject – first word, more like it, because a transition is under way, and what my New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) colleagues have accomplished here is not yet sufficiently integrated in its analysis. We can go further in this direction. It is incredibly difficult to achieve even a basic degree of fusion across disciplines, beyond, that is, the obviously cognate ones. This was not due to lack of commitment or effort.

Nor can this account of ageing be described as definitive. (Perhaps only an encyclopaedia could be so described.) Its contents were determined by the NDA Programme and, despite its wide brief, it was not able to cover every base in a highly complex field. There are many pieces of the ageing jigsaw missing that others will have to investigate. Mental capacity is a huge one and unequal ageing another (FUTURAGE, 2011). But what the NDA researchers have demonstrated collectively is a great willingness to undertake multi-disciplinary research, when the research questions demand it, and considerable talent in doing so. They have cleared away a lot of the debris from the path towards a new science of ageing and, hopefully, will encourage others to go further along it.

As well as new scientific approaches, a new policy perspective is also called for to enable the UK and other countries to adjust successfully to the ageing process. The main contender for this position is ‘active ageing’, which has been taken up in many different contexts – local, national, regional and global.