MICRA and SoSS lead Healthy Ageing Event

The event formed part of a mini-series hosted by the Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Team in early July. The aim of these events was to explore how and why academics work with partner organisations for collaborative research, including an overview of the mechanisms and impacts of collaborative working, and an overview of some specific programmes and funding opportunities.

The academic lead for the Healthy Ageing Event was Dr Emma Stanmore, Reader & Business Engagement Lead, Division of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work. Other panel members included Ed Cox – Co-Founder & Director of Reason Digital, Professor Tarani Chandola, Deputy Director of MICRA and Joanne Summers – Knowledge Exchange Manager. The event was chaired by Javier Garcia Oliva – SoSS Business Engagement Lead and Associate Dean for Business Engagement (Acting), and Rachel Kenyon, Business Engagement Lead, Faculty of Humanities.

During the event, we heard how academics from a mix of discipline areas have worked in collaboration with Reason Digital to develop tech-solutions for falls prevention in older people and how funding from Innovate UK is helping to scale this work. An app developed by the group has recently featured in the news as a means of falls prevention during COVID-19 – helping mitigate the risks to older adults posed by becoming more sedentary during lockdown.

There have been two other events in this series based on the following themes; Creative & Digital industries, led by SALC and Sustainable environment & infrastructure, led by SEED/MUI.

The events, all of which had an excellent level of attendance and engagement, focussed around accessible cases studies and sharing of experience from both academic colleagues and existing partner organisations. We discussed how relationships were developed and the benefits and indeed challenges of such collaborations.