Loneliness is a growing health concern in a rapidly ageing society. As Age UK noted in 2018, 1.4 million older people class themselves as often lonely, and it is estimated this will rise to 2 million people over the aged of 50 by 2025. Loneliness, typically defined as a "discrepancy between one's desired and achieved levels of social relations" is generally experienced by over one third of older people. The subjective feeling of loneliness has been associated with a range of negative outcomes including increased prevalence of physical and mental illness, all-cause mortality, and risk of self-harm. Whilst issues of loneliness may be overlooked by health and social service professionals, the COVID-19 pandemic could have accelerated these issues due to lockdown. Reduced access to social support networks, community events and family highlight the need to detect and support those who are lonely at home. It is of paramount importance to refine methods of identifying loneliness in those who are isolated to allow timely and effective intervention. This proposal aims to develop a smart monitoring and communication system with multifunctional electronics built into textiles used as wearables and home furniture to measure loneliness levels in older people. The timely and accurate identification of loneliness of older people will enable informed care choices at home. The main objective of this research is to determine different levels of loneliness via bespoke multi-sensing monitoring. This could be used to identify those at risk of loneliness and highlight priorities for targeted intervention. Prompt actions to identify and help lonely older people would help to decrease the risk of developing serious healthcare issues and help support them to live independently. DELONELINESS is an interdisciplinary project bringing academic experts from Social Gerontology, Psychology, Design, Smart Composite Material, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and industrial partners as well as policy makers to: (i) to understand the conditions of being lonely and (ii) to develop a smart system to measure and monitor loneliness. The diverse team represents individuals from a range of ethnicities, gender identifications and career stages.

The contribution of older people to the economy and society, through volunteering, caregiving activities, engagement in formal employment past retirement as well as consumers and entrepreneurs, is considerable. Yet ageing is an opportunity that business and industry have still to realise. The overall aim of the Industrial Strategy is to improve innovation and productivity. In doing so we need to consider the role of older people in making this a reality. It also seeks to improve wellbeing contributing to 5 extra years of healthy independent life by 2035 and to narrow the gap between the richest and poorest. To achieve this, as Research Director, Professor Judith Phillips will lead and manage a Social, Behavioural and Design Research programme of interdisciplinary research which seeks to provide an evidence base and platform for innovation through a suite of research projects, knowledge exchange activity and capacity building. Older people will be at the heart of this research programme co-producing and working alongside academic, business and industry stakeholders, policy and practice communities to shape, conduct and create impact from the programme. The Research Director will create a vibrant environment for researchers and stakeholders from a wide variety of disciplines and environments where ideas, new and novel thinking and innovation can be explored around inclusive design (e.g. environments, services and product design); behavioural change; organisational change; and the life course (e.g. intergenerational and life transitions). Activities will be drawn together through shared learning across projects in the programme with regular meetings and opportunities to shape the research culture which is interdisciplinary, challenge-driven and impactful. The flagship programme of research will showcase how arts, humanities and social sciences are central contributors to the Industrial Strategy and the Healthy Ageing portfolio. As a champion of the Healthy Ageing Challenge, Professor Phillips will ensure the project outputs from the programme reach a wide range of end users through strategies for communication, public and business engagement. These will translate the research in the programme to business, public and third sectors drawing on existing influential and new networks and a range of media to ensure impact thus realising the ambitions of the Industrial Strategy. The Research Director will be a key contact point and thought leader for the Healthy Ageing challenge, working with partners from the housing and construction sector, retail, media and third sector amongst others. Examples include Housing LIN, the Association of Convenience Stores and Age UK. Particular emphasis will be on the importance of place and the role of devolved government in realising the research programme and the Healthy Ageing Challenge. Links will be built with other Industrial Strategy challenge areas such as the future of mobility and clean growth as well as challenge fund areas such as the audience of the future and with similar initiatives both across the UK and internationally. The Research Director will also focus on the sustainability of the Healthy Ageing Challenge with an emphasis on building capacity amongst early career and new researchers to ageing, drawing researchers into the programme from underrepresented disciplines and through the development of a roadmap for future research in Healthy Ageing.

As we age, many of us will experience cognitive changes, and for some of us, these will develop into dementia. We know that people's homes can make the experience of cognitive changes more difficult, or can enable continuing inclusion and sense of self-worth and self-esteem. DesHCA will work with people experiencing ageing and cognitive change and those who design and develop housing. We will identify housing innovations that can support living better for longer with cognitive change. Our emphasis on healthy cognitive ageing goes beyond narrow conceptions of 'dementia-friendly design' into a more expansive and inclusive approach to housing innovation. The multidisciplinary DesHCA team involves stakeholders from all areas of housing provision, including people experiencing ageing and cognitive change, architects and designers, housing experts, planners, builders and housing providers. Older people are integral to DesHCA and their health is at its heart. The project will design and build virtual and real designs that will act as demonstrators and test-beds for innovations to support healthy cognitive ageing. These designs will be evaluated from stakeholder points of view, then considered at a larger scale to examine their real-world feasibility. DesHCA has a unique opportunity to feed directly into the UK and Scottish Government City Region Deal for Central Scotland (Stirling and Clackmannanshire), providing groundwork for local housing developments. The focus of this is sustainable, lifetime health, community and economic development, addressing deprivation and inequality. To achieve these aims, DesHCA takes a co-production approach, with the whole team working to identify innovations that engage with their real-world experiences and aspirations. We will use exciting and involving ways to collect data which will be used to inform the design of the demonstrator houses. These designs will evolve as stakeholders interact with them and provide feedback from their different points of view. To collect data, we will ask older people to map and evaluate their own homes and to experience and comment on new design features using virtual reality (VR). They will then collaborate with builders, architects and housing providers in VR workshops to identify practical, realistic and affordable designs that can support healthy cognitive ageing, and therefore longer healthy, independent life. Partners will then come together in interactive workshops to convert designs into plans within a fictional town, building and retrofitting homes, creating services and managing budgets. We will demonstrate how designs can work out in the real world, and how to bring together the various interests involved. Throughout, we will consider issues of costs, to inform business planning and help make decisions on implementation of the new designs. The impact of DesHCA will be achieved through showing what works in housing design for healthy cognitive ageing. Immediately, DesHCA will feed into the City Region Deal and longer term we will provide tools for future developers to inform their decisions about housing for healthy cognitive ageing. Throughout the project, we will disseminate findings to the housing, architecture and building sectors through stakeholder networks. We will publish rigorous research findings to provide a peer reviewed, high quality research base for innovation. Thus we will go beyond recommendations and guidance to provide evidence to support delivery at scale, grounded in the co-production approach that draws on the real experience, interests and imperatives that drive different stakeholders. DesHCA's multidisciplinary team will build capacity among early career researchers in research leadership, working across disciplines such as architecture and planning, economics, sociology and across sectors with a range of different industrial and professional stakeholders, such as housing workers, planners and construction companies.

IMPACT stands for 'Improving Adult Care Together'. It is a new £15 million UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, co-funded by the ESRC and the Health Foundation. It is led by Professor Jon Glasby at the University of Birmingham, with a Leadership Team of 12 other academics, people drawing on care and support, and policy and practice partners - along with a broader consortium of key stakeholders from across the sector and across the four nations of the UK. IMPACT is an 'implementation centre' not a research centre, drawing on evidence gained from different types of research, the lived experience of people drawing on care and support and their carers, and the practice knowledge of social care staff. It will work across the UK to make sure that it is embedded in, and sensitive to, the very different policy contexts in each of the four nations, as well as being able to share learning across the UK as a whole. As it gets up and running, IMPACT will seek to: Provide practical support to implement evidence in the realities of everyday life and front-line services Overcome the practical and cultural barriers to using evidence in such a pressured, diverse and fragmented sector Bring key stakeholders together to share learning and co-design our work in inclusive and diverse 'IMPACT Assemblies' (based in all four nations of the UK to reflect different policy and practice contexts) Work over three phases of development ('co-design', 'establishment' and 'delivery') to build a centre that creates sustainable change and becomes a more permanent feature of adult social care landscape

The Centre for Care is a collaboration between the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham, Kent and Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Office for National Statistics, Carers UK, the National Children's Bureau and the Social Care Institute for Excellence. Working with care sector partners and leading international teams, it addresses the urgent need for new, accessible evidence on care. Arrangements for care, and people who need or provide care, are under unprecedented pressure. Quality, cost, unmet need and the situation of carers and care workers are central concerns. Care interacts with other systems in the NHS, jobs market and in policy on migration, welfare and housing. The cultures, values and public policies that determine eligibility for support and funding rules are also crucial, and 'shocks' like Covid-19 have profound and multiple effects. Together, these factors have led to fragmented care provision and unfair outcomes, and the need for reform is now widely accepted. The Centre for Care provides new evidence and thinking for policymakers, care sector organisations and for people who need or provide care. Its objectives are to: - work with people who need care, carers, care workers and others to produce studies that improve understanding of care and promote wellbeing; - publish robust findings on care systems, on paid and unpaid care, and on diversity, inequalities and sustainability in care; - exploit existing data and develop new studies, producing findings that policymakers and other researchers can use; - work with PhD students and emerging scholars, establishing a new generation of care specialists; - stimulate and inform public discussion of care and translate research into practice; and - collaborate with other care research teams, within and beyond the UK. In studying care, we focus on support, services and protections to promote the wellbeing of vulnerable or disabled people of all ages, and the networks, communities and systems that affect them. Our work will generate new knowledge on three major topics: 'Care trajectories and constraints: requiring, receiving and giving care' explores experiences of care at different life stages and as people transition between different parts of the care system. It also studies how giving or receiving care is affected when families are geographically dispersed. 'Inequalities in care: consequences, planning and place' uses latest statistical and data linkage techniques to learn how socio-economic, health and other inequalities shape experience of care, and the consequences of these for groups and individuals in different places and over time. 'Care workforce change: organisation, delivery and development' focuses on care worker recruitment and conditions; regulation and organisation of care work, including the introduction of new technologies; and efforts to improve job and service quality in care. Cross-cutting these studies, the Centre will also examine 'Care as a complex, adaptive ecosystem', 'Digital care' and Care data infrastructure', supporting the integration of all our research. This helps us develop new thinking on care inequalities, how care ecosystems operate and change, and the drivers and implications of digitalisation and other developments. It also enables us to exploit the UK's finest statistical datasets to produce compelling new insights on care and caring. Our multidisciplinary research team builds on a strong portfolio of care studies and is supported by researchers in nine other countries, all equally passionate about doing impactful research that can drive positive change in experience of care and caring. Our work is undertaken in partnership with care sector organisations and groups advocating on behalf of people who need care, carers and care workers. The Centre for Care is vibrant, innovative, and determined to make a positive difference through impactful, accessible research for all to use.