The International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics VII European Congress, Healthy and Active Ageing for all Europeans ‘II’ was held at the Palazzo della Cultura e dei Congressi (Congress Palace). A dated venue with overgrown grounds and limited accessability for those with anything other than full mobility. The tone of the conference was, as has become associated with this type of conference, heavily weighted towards geriatric medicine and science. General refelections of those attending from the gerontological world agree that many of the presentations were extremely technical and not particularly accessible to those outside the field.

The conference did however attract some ‘big names’ from around the world such Norah Keating and Anne Martin-Matthews (CAN), too many to list from the UK but the like of Alan Walker, Chris Phillipson, Judith Phillips, Mim Bernard and so on (UK Gerontology was well represented); Ariella Lowenstein (Israel) and Simon Biggs & colleagues (Australia). Disappointingly, the social gerontology papers and symposia tended to be scheduled to run concurrently which meant that you had to make difficult decisions as to which presentations to atten d and which to miss. The large gaps between the social geronotlogy papers did however provide great opportunities to meet up with erstwhile friends and colleagues and network with new people from around the world. It was really encouraging to see a strong early career researcher presence and a number of delegates mentioned how encouraging it wa to see so many people visit the poster sessions. A final comment of one of the most important aspects of any conference; the food! This met with mixed reviews in general but all agree that the free ice cream given out by some of the drug companies was a definite highlight!!


Christian Beech
Swansea University