Age Innovation Hub
Shaping the future of innovation
Engagement with the public and healthcare professionals
Age Innovation Hub will crowdsource ideas and needs for technologies to enable healthy ageing throughout the life-course. The needs and ideas identified will directly inform UCL research into healthy ageing, ensuring that we’re focused on delivery usable solutions to real problems.
We will facilitate discussions through a digital platform, asking the public:
- What needs and challenges they have around healthy ageing?
- What ideas they have for technologies that could help this?
Who is the campaign open to?
Our campaign will be open to everyone (we are all ageing!) but we will be doing particular outreach to these key audiences:
- Older patients, elderly community members, family members, neighbours, unpaid carers
- Frontline healthcare professionals e.g. nurses, occupational therapists, professional carers, physiotherapists, GPs
Six challenge areas within the Age Innovation Hub will be open for commenting, posting and voting on ideas:
- Staying independent at home for longer
- Staying active
- Supporting people with health concerns common with age
- Creating healthy environments
- Building social communities
- The bigger picture
The site has additional benefits as a tool for learning and communications. Other areas of the platform include a dive into existing research with lay-friendly case-studies, blogs and links to further learning.
How will the ideas be used?
The needs identified in each challenge area and the feasibility of potential ideas will be assessed by an evaluation panel in January, and the findings will be produced in an open report which can feed into future research. We will then be supporting related ideas through research, development and funding.
Researchers can also use the platform as a forum to outreach with the public about their own existing research, make connections and receive feedback on research direction.
How can UCL researchers get involved?
Submit challenges or questions from your own research areas that you'd like feedback on
We can upload these onto the platform for public discussion or you can post them directly when the platform goes live in October.
Tell us about your existing research on technologies for healthy ageing
We can develop this into a case-study for the learning section of the platform
Engage in discussion on the idea management platform
- Commenting and voting on other ideas, encouraging interaction
- This can be informal and ad hoc discussion, or can be formalised through a paid ‘moderator’ role
Join a panel of experts that will help evaluate the needs and ideas submitted from the public (January 2021)
Experts for each different challenge areas will help contribute to the report, assess the feasibility of ideas and judge future funding call
Why healthy ageing?
- This is a priority area for funding bodies, NHS and the government. As part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, UKRI committed £98 million for innovation projects that improve older life.
- UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering has identified healthy ageing as a strategic focus. The Hub builds on a history of our activity in this area, including a successful Healthy Ageing Symposium in February 2019 which allowed us to identify key challenge areas, draw together a community of UCL experts and engage with external partners that could help us deliver this campaign in charity, clinical, government and industry sectors.
- The impact of the COVID19 pandemic has been particularly significant for ageing populations and there has been an increased emphasis placed on the importance of health throughout life-course to reduce health risks. Exploring issues such as the need for technology that allows independence at home and that reduces social isolation is more pertinent than ever.
