Network Research Directions

The resources of the Network will be applied flexibly to support research development across a wide spectrum of ageing topics. Emphasis will be given to thematic areas and projects on the basis of the importance of the topic and the opportunities for significantly advancing multidisciplinary knowledge. The priority areas will be led by small working groups of Participant Members from various disciplines. Associate Members and broader constituency groups will be kept informed and invited to contribute where appropriate.

On the basis of preliminary assessments undertaken during the seed funding stage, the ARC/NHMRC Research Network in Ageing Well is concentrating in its first year primarily on working groups for building research agendas and partnerships in four Thematic areas essential to quality of life and national impacts:

• Productivity and Economic Security: labour markets for older workers, employment and the macro economy, retirement planning, income support, and asset management.
• Independent Living and Social Participation: aged and community care and social policies, social participation and relationships, information technology, housing and service evaluation, community access and transport.
• Healthy Ageing: determinants of healthy ageing, cognitive competence and mental capacities, physical activity and functional independence, health behaviours, managing chronic illness, and the effectiveness of healthy ageing interventions.
• Population Research Strategies: population projections and modeling the future, data archiving and data linkages, multidisciplinary analysis of existing Australian longitudinal data, review of international survey literature relevant to Australia, and building international collaborations.

In each of the thematic priority areas, the Theme Convenors and their working groups will take the broad topics of public and intellectual importance to the next step of setting priorities and planning specific research efforts. This will require expert judgement in the review of information and research capacities already available, development of research hypotheses and propositions, consideration of appropriate methodologies, planning for analyses of existing data, and preparation of proposals for advancing critical research questions and filling priority gaps in knowledge. Attention will be given to identifying substantial research questions that demand multidisciplinary attention, for example, the psychological, health, and social determinants and consequences of labour force participation.

Apart from working groups in Theme areas and Special Interest Groups, the Network will also facilitate state and territory based workshops. These will aim to bring together researchers from different universities with staff from government departments, and industry and community group representatives. These workshops will focus on building ageing research capacities at state and territory levels.

Developmental groups sponsored by the Network will give explicit attention to both process and methodological issues that are essential to quality research on ageing. First, models of best practice must be developed, tested, and promulgated for conducting collaborative, multidisciplinary research teams involving end-point users of findings. Second, the most appropriate methodologies need to be devised, including use of data already available where possible and the design of appropriate qualitative and/or quantitative methodologies. To assist with these efforts the Network will build collaborative models of best research practice for multidisciplinary investigations in ageing.