The final round of the Programme is currently taking place and the short-listed proposals are out for peer review. The results will be published in March 2009. Meanwhile the Programme has been engaged in two major international initiatives.

Workshop on ‘The Social and Economic Challenges of Ageing Societies: China and the UK’

On behalf of the ESRC and RCUK (China) the New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme organised a highly successful workshop in Beijing, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The main aim of this first RCUK event in China was to explore the potential for joint research between the 20 or so senior social scientists representing the two countries. Over the course of two days there were paired presentations on the key research topics with regard to ageing societies followed by comparative discussions and exchanges concerning definitions, methods and data.

This workshop will be followed by a second one in London, in the spring 2009, which will involve a wider range of UK scientists and also policy makers.

The full workshop proceedings is now available on the NDA website: www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk

Joint Initiative with the Canadian Institute on Ageing (CIA)

Following a successful pilot, in which the CIA issued a call for Canadian researchers to join NDA Collaborative Research Project teams, it is hoped to roll out this initiative to the whole of the NDA Programme. A novel aspect of this collaboration is that the Canadian applications are peer reviewed by the NDA Commissioning Panel.