Ageing Research Networks Global Partnering Awards UK, Singapore, and Australia

Ageing is known to be multifactorial, with many physiological and cognitive changes that impact health and quality of life over the lifespan. Often research into age-related changes is carried out by scientists from independent specialties and disciplines such as skin/bone/muscle/brain etc. Thus, whilst advances in understanding how to manage the ageing decline of say, the musculature, or the skin, proceeds at a pace on its own, it is unusual that these topics are brought together - yet in each person, this is exactly what happens.

Our new consortium solves this problem. We want to tackle ageing holistically. Seven groups comprising the UK's best ageing research networks, and associated clinical and industry partners, have come together to forge closer links with each other and to bridge international boundaries to like-minded groups. Our networks have identified that collaborations in Singapore and Australia are highly aligned to our priorities. Our network specialisms cover skin ageing, introducing the latest research in skin microbiome; muscle decline and how to build resilience; the importance of nutrition and how it links to healthy lifespan and the impact of age on metabolic processes in cells and the extracellular matrix; and lastly cellular senescence. So, that is the biology covered.

However, in addition, this consortium will address several social factors that impact healthy ageing such as diversity (gender, ethnicity); inequality and deprivation; mobility and finally community. The latter is vitally important as many elderly people live their final years in care settings. We want to know how to prevent or delay frailty and associated decline in quality of life, not just in the UK, but with a Global perspective.

Where will our consortium operate? With support from the UK Government, we will forge stronger links with each other in the UK, and some fantastic international partners. For example, in Singapore, research groups in A*STAR, which is Singapore's lead public sector agency, conduct interdisciplinary skin research, collaborating with the public sector, the medical community and industry to translate research into innovations for improved skin health with economic and societal impact in the Asian communities. In Australia, we will work with several groups across medical schools and research institutions, focusing on metabolic health; biomarkers for healthy metabolism; food, diet and healthy ageing and dermatology and skin disease that increase with frailty. Currently, the individual networks have existing links to disparate groups, but these need to be brought together to achieve constructive collaboration in their key areas of ageing research.

How will we go about achieving benefits through the network? The funding will allow researchers to meet all together on several occasions, bringing ageing research disciplines together - possibly for the first time. We will arrange specific networking events in the UK, Singapore, and Australia. These will forge new alliances and lead to sustainable research programmes that will create ageing solutions for all citizens. Importantly, we will facilitate early career researchers to establish research careers in ageing research with an international dimension, that will bring these young scientists the opportunities to work together in globally relevant projects. In summary we will forge a new community, build lasting collaborations and friendships, and speed up the advances in ageing research by working together.

1. Coordination of In Person Networking Events:
Knowledge Exchange Meetings to enable each network to maintain momentum, reinforce existing links with their international partners, and establish their focus specifically in the global ageing forum. Focus will be given to developing sharing (and storing) data, process, and standardisation.

Research Symposia with all networks, partners, and disciplines to break down barriers in understanding what healthy ageing means across different disciplines. The lack of a common research language across disciplines, different geographical locations, and cultures can impede the ability of benefiting from and translating the outcomes of interdisciplinary research.

2. Planning And Training for Future Research Projects:
Early Career Researcher (ECR) exchange visits - Guaranteeing future capacity in global ageing research is a principal objective, with the vision of establishing, extending, and maintaining these cross- and multi-disciplinary collaborations well beyond the lifetime of this award. All networks will share their own gap analysis so we can identify specific areas where there is the greatest need for cooperation and exchange of skills to develop a more cross disciplinary approach to healthy ageing research.

Grant development sandpits - during the early stage of funding calls, multidisciplinary research project design sandpits will be organised with all parties to develop future grant proposals.

3. Virtual Activities:
Promotion and dissemination -primarily through the UKANet website and linked to the activity of individual networks. Global partners will be expected to join the relevant networks and highlight relevant research and links to learned societies.