Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice

Welcome to the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice, a collaborative learning community for businesses, social ventures, researchers, investors and policymakers, working across sectors, disciplines and organisational types, to connect and share knowledge and insights, in relation to healthy ageing.

Innovations emerging across the UK to support healthy ageing

Are you involved in research or developing product or service innovations which will support people to remain active, productive, independent and socially connected across the generations as they age?

About the Community of Practice

The Community of Practice welcomes everyone with an interest in sharing best practice and collaborating with the shared purpose of maximising the opportunities an ageing population brings and helping more people enjoy the benefits of leading a longer life in health.

The Community of Practice has over 1,000 members from businesses, researchers, social ventures, investors and policymakers across the UK and beyond, working across numerous sectors and disciplines.

Amongst the community, are those projects funded by the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge (there are now over 120 funded projects).

The objectives of the community are:

  • To support knowledge exchange between businesses, social enterprises and academics to accelerate their journey to impact and scale.
  • To act as a catalyst for future innovation in healthy ageing by championing and supporting interest and growth in the sector.
  • To provide connection and collaboration opportunities between practitioners, policy makers and investors with an interest in healthy ageing.

 

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Join The Community

Join the Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice to discover emerging innovations and insights in the field of healthy ageing, and receive a monthly newsletter with the latest news, events and funding opportunities.

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What activities does the Community of Practice run?

It’s the interests of its members and emerging topics in healthy ageing that drive the activities of the community. As well as providing resources and a monthly newsletter, the Community of Practice runs a wide range of events – from informal catch-ups to workshops and webinars, to an annual conference.

The Community of Practice covers themes that represent common challenges and areas of interest to all, such as:

  • Embedding co-design and maintaining engagement
  • Working towards sustainability through investment and scale
  • Demonstrating social and financial impact
  • Tackling ageism and showcasing the positives of ageing in action
  • Ensuring services reach communities where they will have the greatest impact
  • Policy updates relating to ageing populations and health and social care
  • How to best use data and technology to advance innovation

The community is facilitated by Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) with UKRI’s Healthy Ageing Challenge team. It also shares activities and expertise from partners from across the healthy ageing ecosystem, all to support a vibrant environment of knowledge sharing and collaboration.

About the Healthy Ageing Challenge

UKRI’s Healthy Ageing Challenge is helping businesses, including social ventures, develop and deliver services and products which support people as they age, along with the innovative business models that will help them be adopted at scale.

The projects it supports span multiple sectors including care, leisure, financial services, work, housing, digital and energy, and all are united by a shared purpose to enable people to remain active, productive, independent and socially connected across generations for as long as possible.

Find out more about the Healthy Ageing Challenge by watching this compilation of some of the Challenge’s funded projects.

Healthy Ageing Challenge Projects

Evaluating accountability platforms for care

Many developing countries have seen the expansion of private care for older adults in recent years. Often unregulated, care home sectors provide an uneven quality of care. Research by a University of East Anglia team and local partners in the Argentinian city of La Plata…

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Physical activity, social connectivity and dementia

Physical activity programmes have been shown to have many benefits for people living with dementia. This research project aims to better understand the experiences and benefits of providing physical activity within dementia-friendly communities across England. It also looks at the barriers to partic

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IDEAL (Interaction, Dementia and Engagement in Arts for Lifelong learning)

Working with Equal Arts, the IDEAL project helps artists and social enterprises to run interventions and activities for people living with dementia (PwD). In the form of workshops, these activities offer a creative outlet for PwD thus encouraging increased agency and sense of social identity.…

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Dynamic muscle function monitoring

A multidisciplinary team are developing a wearable device (the ‘MyoSock’) to monitor muscle health and evaluate the efficacy of treatments with the end goal to produce a commercially viable device.

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Read the Healthy Ageing Challenge’s Story So Far

Read the Healthy Ageing Challenge’s Story So Far

Helping people to remain active, productive independent and socially connected for longer.

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Resources

Stay informed with the latest Healthy Ageing resources from key partners across the community.

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Resources

Healthy Ageing 2022

Catch up on any of the sessions you missed or want to watch again from Healthy Ageing 2022.

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Related Opportunities

UK-China Healthy Ageing Accelerator Feb-Apr 2023

Opens: 20/02/2023 Closes: 17/04/2023

We seek innovators with new product or service ideas that can support people to stay healthy, connected and active as we age.

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SBRI: Medicines and dementia phase 1

Opens: 27/02/2023 Closes: 24/05/2023

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by the Scottish Health Industry Partnership (SHIP). Organisations can apply for a share of up to £240,000 inclusive of VAT, to develop disruptive, innovative solutions supporting people at risk of dementia to manage their medica…

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Mobility Pathfinder 2023

Opens: 01/03/2023 Closes: 12/05/2023

£50k-£70k funding available for inspirational, life-enhancing ideas, prototypes, or plans to reimagine how personal mobility options in the UK can better support a rapidly ageing population to stay connected, active, and independent for longer.

More Information

Related Events and Recordings

Tue
28
Feb
2023

Ageing and Retail Insight webinar

13.00 - 14.30 | Online

Watch now
Wed
1
Mar
2023

Navigating the Funding and Investment Landscape - information event

13.00 - 14.30 | Online

Watch now
Mon
13
Feb
2023

London Aging 2.0 Book Club - In Conversation with Susan Golden

20.00 - 21.00 | Online

Watch now
See all events

Our Experts

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13/03/2023

Triple win for UK companies at European healthy ageing innovation event

In March 2023, three UK projects were announced as the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners of the Innovation Pitch competition at AgeingFit, with the first-place winner being recognised as the most innovative project in Europe in the healthy ageing sector.

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Join our Community of Practice

Anyone with an interest in innovation and healthy ageing is welcome to join the Community of Practice. It's free, quick and easy to sign up. As a member you will receive information on news and updates and events from the Challenge and the wider healthy ageing sector.

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