Whereas other challenges of the day, like climate change and global terrorism, have arisen from human error, the increase in length of life is fundamentally a success story. Life expectancy is increasing by a staggering 5 hours a day because we have built a safer, healthier world

• Each day we have 24 hours for now, and 5 hours for later.
• How good will those 5 hours be when we come to use them?
• Can we make them better?

What is AGEACTION?

On 23 April 2007 around 400 delegates from across Europe and beyond, gathered for the AGEACTION conference hosted by the Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University at The Sage Gateshead, UK.

The primary purpose of the AGEACTION conference and of the EU FP6 Specific Support Action, of which it is part, was to bring about a substantial change in the perception within Europe of what is one of the greatest changes to affect the population of this continent in the last two hundred years. It is a change which is long overdue for recognition but it is only in the last two decades, when combined with the effects of falling fertility in the developed world, that some of the startling aspects of change have become apparent. The change is lengthening life expectancy. To set this change in context, we can assert with considerable confidence that it is likely to be at least as sweeping in its impact on our lives as climate change and global terrorism. The increase in longevity is a change that, although increasingly challenging if we ignore it, is the product of quite extraordinary success and has the potential to contribute to even greater successes in the future.

Our goal is to help policymakers, research scientists, industries and the public at large see this success and to realise the opportunities that it brings, as well as tackling the challenges. To do this, we believe that it is necessary to create and exploit much greater interaction between scientific research that is beginning to throw light on what actually drives the eventual ageing of our bodies and other areas of activity, in medicine, social science, technology, finance and industry.

Nothing happens without money and a part of the ambition of AGEACTION is to see funding for research on ageing within Europe increase by at least tenfold within the next 10 years. But we are not arguing for a handout. The case for investing in ageing can, we believe, make itself without special pleading, once it is understood what is involved and what is at stake. Our lengthening lives have enormous societal and commercial potential. We need to make the transition from seeing population ageing as merely an inconvenient by-product of our success in preventing people dying before their time to focusing on how to make the most from our hard-won extra years of life.

Who was involved?

Delegates were challenged and inspired by speeches, presentations and discussion from leading experts in the study of ageing across the sectors of biology, medicine, finance, social science and technology. Sector panels from these disciplines had been convened to produce background papers which formed the basis of the conference. In addition to the expert panels, we were honoured to have a distinguished list of international speakers from each discipline to give their perspective of the area and this contribution to the conference added to the overall debate. Biographies of all sector panel members and speakers are included in the conference book which is available for download from the website: http://ageaction.ncl.ac.uk.

Messages from the conference:

Patrik Kolar , Head of Unit, Health Research Directorate, DG Research, European Commission

“Ageing is not a separate issue to be tackled in isolation from other ones. The European Union’s response to ageing is therefore developed as part of the overall strategy of mutually reinforcing policies”. Europe ’s response to World Ageing (COM(2002)143 final)

It is impossible to capture everything from such a conference in a brief article, so a selection of quotes from the discussion and presentations on the social sciences are as follows:

James Vaupel , Max-Planck Institute for Demographic Research

‘… Europe is the perfect region to do work on the interaction between population and change as Europe has so many countries with autonomous policies, provinces and regions which are autonomous.’

Marja Jylhä , Professor of Gerontology, Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere and Director of the national graduate school Doctoral Programmes in Public Health.

‘… It is vital to strengthen the position of ageing research in the universities. We should create an established research environment for ageing research in all these disciplines (medicine, biology, finance, social science, technology) and in their collaboration. Newcastle is one of the very few real strong establishments for research into ageing in Europe . We need support for multidisciplinary research training at the European level and we really should raise the future generation of leaders in ageing research.’

Many delegates of older people’s organisations attended AGEACTION and their questions and contribution added to the richness of the debate. One particularly interesting question from the ‘floor’

‘… All of what we have heard so far today is very interesting but what I haven’t heard is about older people being involved in the research process as opposed to be researched.’

The various issues surrounding this were discussed and it was agreed that it is an interesting social science issue which is continuously being debated. It is recognised that the level of participation isn’t good enough and it was suggested that this is something that needs to be improved

Baroness Sally Greengross, Chief Executive, International Longevity Centre UK and co-chair of the Alliance for Health and the Future chaired the Social Science debate and summed up the discussion.

‘…. and if there are two messages that I take from it…It really is never too late to improve our ageing process and ageing is primarily physical but the meaning of ageing is very much social. It is a social phenomenon so the work done by the social scientists and social science generally is of extreme importance.’

What happens next?

The final panel debate was led by Tom Shakespeare , a medical sociologist with a particular interest in disability and in bioethics who posed the questions: What are we going to do – what are we aiming at? How do we achieve that? What are the barriers? and :

‘Soon we are going to have a new Prime Minister in the UK and soon in France, a new President. If they were here and they had just come for one message, what would it be? As they enter their period of political influence and control, what would you say as a panel they should do in terms of ageing?

• Focus on the quality of life and try to diminish the differences between social and economic classes.
• Research, research, research.
• Investment in an ageing population, in service provision as well as research and remembering that ageing as we have heard today is multifaceted. So each action, each bit of service provision and each piece of research must be multifaceted……… we are indebted to the European Union for bringing and making this country pass the law of anti-discrimination which includes age as well as the subject of disability which has done very well with a strong voice and to benefit from that, this multifaceted approach must be a primary approach now and we must remember that age is something that can no longer be ignored.
• Listen to the people, but seriously.
• ‘… you will be old soon –think about it!’

Tom Kirkwood , summed up the day in his final presentation and thanked delegates and speakers for their contribution and those involved for making the conference happen. In his summing up of proceedings, Tom emphasised that there is an opportunity for delegates to contribute to the post-conference debate. If you weren’t able to join us at the conference and would like to comment, please visit the website http://ageaction.ncl.ac.uk where you can add to the debate, or just write to us. The AGEACTION team will be pushing the messages forward and will be orchestrating this dissemination but please pay your part. We will be distilling these messages that we will take, for example, to members of the European Parliament and other important groups to try to get the message out there.

The next step for the AGEACTION sector panels is to follow up work in their specific areas to identify outcomes of reports and individual research. Findings and impact won’t be immediate and we envisage this debate will grow.

To find out more

To find out more about AGEACTION and to offer comment, please visit the website: http://ageaction.ncl.ac.uk. The website includes background to AGEACTION, Sector Panel reports, the conference book and pdf versions of conference presentations. We hope very soon that the website will link to the media site showing video of the Conference. This will enable delegates to re-visit the discussion and debate and an opportunity for those who weren’t able to attend to see what they missed.

Its time for Age Action!