one - Introduction

Summary

This book is the second of two volumes of work arising from the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) research programme. This 10-year multidisciplinary research endeavour comprised 35 individual projects, 29 of which are represented in the two volumes. As with Volume 1, each chapter has been specially prepared, to a standard format, to provide context, methods, findings and implications. The first book contained chapters on three broad themes – active and healthy ageing, designing for an ageing population and global ageing – as well as an overview of the implications for social care of demographic changes to 2020. This book comprises four major themes: autonomy and independence in later life, biological perspectives, nutrition in old age, and representations of old age. This section list for the two books emphasises the extraordinary multidisciplinary collaboration that the NDA programme achieved. It is, to say the least, highly unusual to embrace such a wide range of disciplines – from biology to the visual arts – within one programme of research. These two volumes were preceded by a multidisciplinary synthesis of all of the projects in the NDA programme, The new science of ageing (Walker, 2014), which also provides a full account of the important recent transition in the broad field of gerontology. While it is not necessary to repeat that background, a brief outline of the NDA programme will assist readers to locate the research represented in this volume within the programme as a whole.

The New Dynamics of Ageing research programme

The NDA programme was the first of its kind: a multidisciplinary collaboration between five UK Research Councils. At the beginning, in April 2005, there were four Research Councils behind the programme: the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC). A year later the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) joined in as a co-founder of the programme. Later, in 2008, the Canadian Institute of Aging (part of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) also became a co-funding partner in the programme as 10 new projects were linked to existing UK ones.

The NDA programme was established with the aims of understanding the new dynamics of ageing, the various influences shaping them, and their implications for individuals and society.