British Council for Ageing (BCA) Update - SHAPING POLICY ON AGEING ISSUES

Submitted by Carole Proctor on Mon, 14/05/2007 - 12:58
Author(s): 
Janet Lord
Summary: 

The British Council for Ageing was originally constituted in 1975 and was re-formed in 2006 in response to the need for an organisation that can speak at national level for the three UK learned societies concerned with the various aspects of old age and the ageing process. The BCA is thus intended to act as a vehicle by which the British Geriatrics Society, The British Society for Gerontology and the British Society for Research on Ageing can provide informed opinion and influence policy making with respect to older people and research in to the ageing process. The BCA was launched formerly in October 2006 at the House of Lords.

Article: 

BCA activities

The British Council for Ageing (BCA) aims to promote understanding between the different disciplines involved in the study of ageing and older people. In its first 6 months of operation it has carried out activities in the area of capacity building, training, awareness raising and policy making. Some examples of key activities are:

  • 2 workshops for 2007, run jointly with SPARC (Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity, funded by BBSRC and EPSRC). The first workshop held at Birmingham University in February had 70 attendees and concerned funding available in FP7 for Ageing Research. As a result at least 6 applications are being written for submission to FP7 in 2007. The second workshop, organised by Professor Chris Phillipson (BSG), will take place on May 24th at Keele University and concerns teaching of Ageing in the undergraduate curriculum. It will have speakers from all three societies and aims to produce a cross-disciplinary curriculum for medical students and identify participants willing to work together to produce a lecture notes series and/or short textbook suitable for undergraduate courses in the area of social gerontology and biogerontology.

  • Professor Janet Lord (Chair of BSRA) represented the BCA at a SPARK workshop organised by the Funders Forum for Research on Ageing and Older People (FFRAOP) and Unilever on The Future of Ageing Research in the UK. A document outlining the conclusions of this workshop has been published recently (O.H.Franco et al. (2007) Ten commandments for the future of ageing research in the UK: a vision for action. BMC Geriatrics 7:10. Available at www.biomedcentral.com/bmcgeriatr/).

  • Professor Lord will also represent BCA and BSRA at a second SPARK workshop on The Healthy Ageing Phenotype organised by the MRC and Unilever on May 24th and 25th in Amsterdam.

  • The BCA have been invited to attend FFRAOP as observers, which will give the opportunity to contribute to discussions on the future policy on Ageing Research in the UK.

  • BCA advised upon the content of the "Ageing" section of a public display at the Centre for Life in Newcastle. The display hopes to stimulate the general public to think about the Future with respect to the older adult and what current research might suggest as possible significant changes to how we will live our lives as older people in the future. The exhibition opens on May 24th.

  • BCA was invited to, and had a stand at, the European FP6 funded workshop entitled AGEACTION: Changing Expectations of Life, at The SAGE conference centre, Newcastle on Tyne, April 23rd 2007. The stand was visited by many of the 450 delegates.

  • Professor Lord was invited to a roundtable briefing with the Minister for Science Malcolm Wicks at The Royal Society on April 19th 2007. The briefing was to discuss current progress in Biology of Ageing Research, but issues relating to geriatric medicine and social gerontology were also discussed. The briefing was attended by the science correspondents of several national newspapers (The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Daily Mail).