The Design Age Institute
The DAI@Oxford is the partnership based at Oxford University who will work with colleagues at the Royal College of Art and Newcastle, the International Longevity Centre and Design Museum, and a variety of stakeholders from design, business, policy and academia, to address the importance of design in the light of global ageing. The partnership is funded by a UKRI Research England award for 3 years.
The Design Age Institute is part of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, at the RCA which has pioneered the study and practice of inclusive design over the past 25 years. The central aim of the Design Age Institute is inclusive design in dealing with the challenge of an ageing society. It will focus on more aspirational products and services that support healthy ageing and move away from medical products and services purchased at the point of crisis. Key Themes will include ‘Ageing well in place’, supporting people to remain in their homes and communities and ‘Longer working lives’, supporting people to stay in the workplace for longer.
DAI@Oxford will carry out the empirical research which supports the more technical and market research undertaken at the RCA. This will include a scoping of the landscape of demand, including quantitative in-depth data analysis of key data sets; an exploration of the ageing policy ad practice landscape impacting upon innovate design, and the establishment of the Intergenerational Consortium to explore Intergenerational Communities and Design.
Key projects include:
- Understanding the Macro Landscape of Design Demand for an Ageing Population, Kenneth Howse, Sarah Harper, Yanan Zhang
- The Policy and Practice Landscape, George Leeson, Yanan Zhang, Nana Nanitashvilli
- Intergenerational Communities and Design, Sarah Harper, Jaco Hoffman and the IG Consortium
Oxford Staff:
- Sarah Harper Co-PI
- Kenneth Howse C0-PI
- George Leeson Consultant
- Jaco Hoffman Consultant
- Yanan Zhang (Research Fellow)
- Robert (Bob) McNulty, Research Associate
- Matt Kaplan, Research Associate
- Nana Nanitashvili (Senior Research Officer)
