Professor Helen Bartlett and Dr. Matthew Carroll
Background
Since the International Year of Older Persons
(IYOP) in 1999, Australia has experienced a decade of capacity
building efforts in ageing research that has brought policy, research
and service sectors closer together and raised expectations of more
sustainable approaches. The landscape also shifted from a deficit model
of ageing to focus on healthy, active or productive ageing, indicating
a broader multidisciplinary and collaborative approach. While much
seems to have been achieved in this time, questions remain about the
prospects for a strategic and sustainable model for building ageing
research capacity in the future. This paper provides an overview of the
decade of development and examines the key successes and challenges
for the future.
Building the ageing research agenda
A suite of strategic, review and position
papers were released between 2000-2003, demonstrating the broadening of
the ageing policy and research agenda. After extensive consultation,
in 2001 the National Strategy for an Ageing Australia (Andrews, 2002)
was launched, providing broad policy goals for addressing a
comprehensive agenda of ageing issues. This national focus on ageing
was made explicit in the National Research Priorities released at the
end of 2002 which identified ‘Ageing Well, Ageing Productively’ as a
priority goal area. It recognised the need for research into the
economic and social participation of older people and their carers,
supporting independence and quality of life, and compression
of morbidity towards the end of life. A review of healthy ageing
undertaken in 2003 by the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and
Innovation Council, supported and progressed the national priorities
and goals (PMSEIC 2003).
In mid-2002, the Building Ageing Research Capacity
(BARC) project was established by the federal Department of Health and
Ageing with the aim of improving collaboration and coordination
between researchers and policy-makers. Its initiatives included major
national symposia in 2003 and 2006, development of the Framework for an Australian Ageing Research Agenda (Office for an Ageing Australia, 2003), and establishment of the Ageing Research Online (www.aro.gov.au),
a national portal for information on researchers, projects,
educational opportunities and grants. After flourishing for two years,
with over 2,000 researchers registered on the site, the ARO has since
languished and its future is unclear.
A significant development during this time was Ageing Well Ageing Productively
(AWAP) funding round which was jointly supported by the two main
government funding bodies - the National Health and Medical Research
Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC). The AWAP
round provided $10 million over 5 years for six projects addressing a
broad range of issues including economics, genetics, health and
lifestyle, and indigenous issues as well as support for longitudinal
research. Nevertheless, ageing research still represents a relatively
small proportion of the total ARC and NHMRC grants allocated.
A number of university research centres on
ageing have come and gone over the past decade. There are currently
around 30 ageing-related centres, including 18 Australian Association
of Gerontology (AAG)/International Association of Geriatrics and
Gerontology (IAGG) collaborating centres. Such centres have either a
discipline focus (e.g. geriatric medicine, nursing, dementia, social
sciences), or to a lesser extent, may be transdisciplinary. While
important incubators for research on ageing, they generally struggle to
be sustainable. Most are small (fewer than 10 researchers) and staffed
with contract researchers; few have established partnerships with
government; none have ongoing funding streams and there is no truly
“National” centre. The recent move by universities to create larger
Institutes or pursue other research priorities has seen some productive
centres lose focus or disappear. A recent positive indicator is the
ARC funding for a Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research
which has been awarded $12.7 million over 7 years. This represents the
largest commitment to ageing research to date and reflects the
government focus on the economic implications of population ageing, as
confirmed in the three Intergenerational Reports (Costello, 2002, 2007;
Swan, 2010) produced by the federal treasury.
Key success stories in capacity building
The ARC/NHMRC Research Network in Ageing Well
The Ageing Well Network is the leading example in
Australia of an attempt to build capacity in ageing research. It was
funded for five years (2005-2009) through the ARC Research Networks
scheme and was jointly funded by the NHMRC in recognition of the
multidisciplinary nature of the ageing research field. The Network
involved seven university partners and an Advisory Group comprising
lead executives from the key ageing stakeholders in Australia
representing consumers, policy and practice.
The Network was successful in facilitating
collaboration between researchers across disciplinary /institutional
boundaries resulting in $5million in competitive research funding and
identification of new research agendas. It increased partnerships
between key constituencies (community, government and industry) and
researchers. It also built capacity through providing support/training
opportunities for emerging researchers in ageing through the Emerging
Researchers in Ageing (ERA) initiative.
Emerging Researchers in Ageing initiative (ERA)
The ERA initiative was established in 2002 to
provide support and encouragement to students undertaking research
higher degrees in the field of human ageing in Australia, by offering
them opportunities to network and collaborate with their peers, senior
academics and policy makers within Australia and internationally. ERA
aims to be informed by the needs of the students and so conducted a
National Survey of Emerging Researchers in Ageing (NERAS). The survey
found that 75% of students wished to remain in the field post-PhD, but
that a key barrier to doing so was insufficient opportunities to meet
and collaborate with other researchers in ageing (see Bartlett,
Underwood and Peach, 2007).
With the support of the Ageing Well Network, ERA
appointed a part-time coordinator and the range of activities expanded
to include trialling a mentoring scheme, developing the ERA website (www.era.edu.au),
and a travel exchange program (which supported domestic and
international exchanges). One of the major ERA activities has been a
2-day masterclass, held in 2008 and 2009 for students in
mid-candidature. These masterclasses were facilitated by research
leaders and covered networking, collaboration, career pathways,
dissemination, publishing, and grant writing (see Bartlett and Peach,
2008).
Another core ERA component is the Virtual
Seminar Series which uses videoconference technology to allow emerging
researchers to “meet” with peers across the country and hear from senior
academics and policy makers about the latest trends. This has helped
to break down some of the isolation previously reported. The seminar
series has expanded to include New Zealand nodes and a special
Australia/UK seminar. The important capacity building role played by
the ERA initiative has been recognised by the new ARC Centre of
Excellence in Population Ageing Research which has agreed to provide
ongoing support for ERA. This support will allow ERA to continue to
grow to meet the changing needs of emerging researchers.
The National Dementia Initiative
An outstanding example of a successful
research/stakeholder partnership is that led by Alzheimer’s Australia
which has worked closely with leading Australian researchers over two
decades to build an ongoing focus on dementia. This has included
commissioning reports on the economic impacts of dementia and advocacy
to government during the 2004 election. This concerted effort saw
dementia being made a national health priority, resulting in funding
for dementia research grants, collaborative research centres, and
training study centres. More recently, a National Quality Dementia Care
Network has been established and work is underway to establish a
Consumer Dementia Research Network.
The success of this initiative can be attributed
to long term partnership between researchers and stakeholders, and
strategic use of information – particularly highlighting the economic
implications for government. In addition, unlike the broader ageing
field, the initiative focuses on a disease state which is easier for
people (including policy makers and funders) to engage with.
Key influences in Australian ageing research capacity building
IYOP and other international efforts highlighted
the importance of ageing and this message was taken up by key
policymakers who drove the agenda early in the decade and brought
research and policy together, requiring both sides to look beyond their
own interests to the wider research realm. This collaboration resulted
in government support to build the research agenda, fund the Ageing
Well Network, AWAP round etc, but this support has since tapered off.
There are also a number of barriers which have
impeded capacity building efforts including the multidisciplinary nature
of the ageing research field which makes it a challenge to build
capacity across so many areas and harder to fund research within the
discipline specific funding streams. The large number of stakeholders
with different agendas means that there is often competition for
attention. In addition, the three year electoral cycle makes it
difficult to build a sustained policy focus. Finally, after some
success in bringing ageing to public attention during the early 2000s,
other long term issues like sustainability and climate change have now
taken priority.
Conclusion
After the initial successes early in the 2000s,
there is a danger of losing momentum in the ageing research field with
the focus moving to specific ageing issues (the dementia initiative and
the economic implications of population ageing) or away from ageing to
issues like climate change. Further dedicated investment in ageing
research capacity is needed to increase quality and scale of the
research effort. In particular, research is needed on promoting
healthy ageing at a population level in order to minimise the
implications of population ageing.
Due in part to the efforts of the Ageing Well
Network, there has been some progress in building multi-disciplinary
collaboration, as seen in the funding of the new Centre of Excellence,
but ongoing efforts are required to promote this collaborative
approach. More strategic alliances between key stakeholders and
researchers are also required so that they can work together to sustain
policy attention and leverage funds.
There are lessons to be drawn from the capacity
building efforts of the UK, where the research funding councils have a
long history of collaboration and establishment of funding programs, or
Canada, where the Institute of Aging was formed as part of the
Canadian Institutes of Health Research. No such ongoing collaboration
between the funding bodies and dedicated ageing research funding stream
has emerged in Australia. Only the one-off commitments to the Ageing
Well Network and the AWAP round have taken place. Researchers continue
to compete in a national grant process that favours discipline-specific
proposals. On a positive note, research translation is becoming a
priority through the ARC Linkage and NHMRC Partnership schemes, but
there is a long way to go.
Finally, if we are to retain emerging
researchers in the field and attract new researchers, there is a need
to provide new opportunities including post-doctoral fellowships,
continued networking and mentoring opportunities. It is vital to build
the ERA initiative so that it can continue to meet this need. It is
also important to monitor research capacity so that accurate
information about the research workforce is available in order to
inform lobbying efforts to policy and funding bodies.
Acknowledgement
This paper is based on a Keynote presentation by
Helen Bartlett at the 2010 British Society of Gerontology Annual
Conference held at Brunel University in July.
References
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