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Population ageing and semiconductors: the global race for digitalisation
Population ageing and digitalisation have been identified as major interesctions which will shape our future. The pressure to enhance national productivity and to overcome the potential chall...
Healthy Ageing in an Era of Climate Change
When asked about the biggest challenge facing us globally, Mick Smyer, Founder and CEO of the American non-profit organisation, Growing Greener, didn't miss a beat: "Ageing in an era...
Why youth participation in climate change remains a struggle
This week sees the endgame of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Since 1995, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFC...
Changing parameters of inclusive design
Exactly 20 years ago, I was involved in a landmark project at the Royal College of Art with retail giant B&Q to develop a range of low-cost, lightweight, easy-to-use power tools that would make...
The hidden world of older women’s work
As the world’s populations ages, across nearly all societies women make up a majority of older people. We are all too familiar with the negative, even apocalyptic terms in which ageing societ...
The facts behind the headlines
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a traumatic experience at all levels – for individuals, families, communities and governments. The numbers are beyond the grasp of most of us, globally, around ...
Integrating stable and modifiable aspects of resilience into healthy aging
Of the many challenges in life course epidemiology is unpacking the complex interrelationships between stable and modifiable attributes across a lifetime of unique experiences and exposures that im...
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Debunking the Climate Change Generation Gap
In the enduring generational wars portrayed in the media, perhaps none is quite so glaring as that concerning climate change. Young people, so the story goes, care intensely about the environment. ...
Think Global, Act Global
‘Global Initiatives’ are generally thought a Good Thing. They promise harmonious collaboration towards peace and prosperity. And in fact the Global Initiative on Loneliness ...
Why didn’t the abolition of the One-Child Policy in China increase the fertility rate?
Responding to a dramatic decrease in the birth rate, the Chinese government announced on 31st May 2021 that couples would be permitted to have up to three children. This change follows the relaxati...
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Why not a British Provident Fund?
When the Conservative government announced its plans to address the UK ‘funding crisis’ in social care this week by raising a new ‘Health and Social Care Levy’ (based in the...
Intergenerational baiting and "being cringe" in Brazil
Last week in the Institute blog Christian Langkamp highlighted some of the reasons for growing intergenerational tensions in Germany. I want to look at Brazil, and especially the way that &ls...
Intergenerational issues and Germany’s September election
When the pandemic hit Germany in 2020, normal public life ground to a halt. The situation, as Merkel told the German people on 18th March, ‘was serious, and should be taken seriously’. ...
How age-friendly cities are paving the way for the future: the case of Akita City
The convergence of population ageing with urbanisation is one of the major global mega-trends that will shape societies and communities in the 21st century. Thanks to the rapid advance of new techn...
Reimagining public libraries
The term “a third place” was coined 3 decades ago by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe somewhere people can go that is neither home nor work, a place to meet people, talk and do thi...