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Qualified Self – rethinking the Quantified Self movement for older people?

It is now widely accepted that having real-time data on what we eat, how much we exercise and how we sleep may be able to help us manage our health and wellbeing. We’ve become accustomed t...


60 is the new 60!

It has suddenly become trendy to be 60, with headlines across the world today proclaiming that 60 is the new 40.   No – 60 is the new 60.  I could write highligh...


Experimenting and ecosystem construction for population ageing challenges and opportunities

Population ageing is a global phenomenon and most policy makers, practitioners and researchers agree that it will have a major impact on all sorts of social arrangements, not only in those relative...


A new generational contract?

The Resolution Foundation published the final report of its Intergenerational Commission in May.  After a flurry of predictably mixed responses in the mainstream press, we have to wait and see...


Getting older and more urban – a world of challenge and opportunity

The world is ageing – both at an individual and population level – and this ageing produces challenges and opportunities for governments and citizens across the globe. In addition, the ...


Can a machine error foster intergenerational connectivity?

At 106 years old and despite having already gone through primary school–as well as a career as a teacher and fifty years of retirement – Ingrid Sandberg got an official l...


Universal Health Coverage – how meaningful for older people?

Once a relatively marginal issue in the global health debate, in recent years the momentum towards support for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has grown apace, as national governments and internati...


Can ‘Leave No One Behind’ be achieved for older people in the SDGs?

One of the most transformative and far reaching aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the pledge to Leave No One Behind (LNOB). Simply put, this is the idea that the SDGs will not ...


Building Public Awareness of the (New) Old Age: A Curriculum

Middle age is having a rebirth. Rather than conceptualizing this phase of life as something to survive, a new vision is taking hold, one that views midlife as a time of renewal and opportunity.&nbs...


Age(ing) and Afrofuturism

I am currently involved in a proposed project on Age(ing) at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, Germany to open in October 2018 for 11 months. ‘Age(ing)’ will be explored in all its ...


Bridging the digital divide amongst older adults

Innovations in modern technology have revolutionized healthcare as we know it. Unprecedented advances in the mechanisms used to capture and analyse data have increased the capacity to predict and m...


Transition to retirement. Does it really matter for our health and well-being?

For many people retirement is seen as a key reward for decades of busy working life. It is a time of freedom, a time to relax, to explore and to have fun unburdened by the daily grind. For others, ...


Mens Sana in Corpore Sano? Beauty and body performance in Science

A few weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with a friend.  He is a disability-rights activist and was very upset by how the Italian media had decided to cover the news of Prof Stephen H...


Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: An OIPA Book Club

If, like me, you are a veteran of several book clubs, you will know two things: 1. The best books to discuss are the ones that provoke heated disagreement and 2. The best book groups are the ...


Older people still left behind

I am looking forward to the forthcoming seminar series on “SDGs, Ageing and Global Development” at the Institute. It promises to raise and discuss many issues that I find important. The...