Research project
On 19 May, the European Social Network (ESN) took part in a stakeholder meeting of the MoPAct (Mobilising the Potential of Active Ageing in Europe) research project. MoPAct is a four year project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme to provide research and practical evidence upon which Europe can make longevity an asset for social and economic development. The aim of this meeting was to present the first year outcomes of the project to stakeholders and to collect their feedback and input for the specific themes of the project.
The project calls for a new positive view on ageing, rather than seeing it as a period of decline, frailty and dependence. It argues that this new paradigm of ageing can only happen if adequate responses to challenges of longevity are in place and health and active ageing is promoted. Moreover, the project supports the goal under the Horizon 2020 programme to ensure lifelong health and well-being for all and the promotion of social innovation, and the aims of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA) to raise average healthy life expectancy in Europe by two years by 2020. The project brings together 29 research organisations from 13 countries across Europe in order to analyse economic and societal challenges of ageing, collect social innovation practices and map the steps required to realise active ageing in Europe.
In order to analyse the responses to ageing and develop measures that realise healthy and active ageing, the project works on the following research themes:
- Economic consequences of ageing: understanding and alleviating the economic effects of population ageing
- Extending working lives: raising the employment of older workers, aided by lifelong learning
- Pension systems, savings and financial education: ensuring pension adequacy and pension system sustainability
- Health and wellbeing: driving healthy life expectancy and the social engagement of older people
- Bio-gerontology: delaying the onset of frailty, dependence and age-related diseases
- Built and technological environment: shaping housing, mobility, transport and ICT provision to support an ageing population
- Social support and long-term care: matching sustainable supply and demand for long-term care and ageing-related social support
- Enhancing active citizenship: enhancing the political participation of senior citizens and improving the capacity for adapting to societal change
During the stakeholder input phase, ESN has contributed to two themes: health and wellbeing and social support and long term care. The aim of the health and wellbeing research field is to look into drivers for healthy life expectancy and social engagement of older people. Although life expectancy is still very different across European countries, it has been increasing in the past decades. Two factors have influenced life expectancy: better social conditions during life and continued advancement in medical care and technology. As a first output, the working group has published a review of healthy life expectancy which concludes that increases in life expectancy are not accompanied by healthy life expectancy. In this light, the group discussions focused on the promotion of social participation and wellbeing of people with poor health. During the stakeholder dialogue, ESN has underlined the social aspect of care for frail older people which addresses social needs and fosters social participation.
The aim of the social support and long-term care research field is to support active ageing strategies for older people in need for long-term care.The research aims to foster social innovation in long-term care in order to create caring societies and show drivers of sustainable socio-economic progress in long-term care. This research field will provide a state-of-the-art review on social support and long-term care, a quantitative analysis report on individual choices in social support and long-term care, a qualitative inventory on key drivers of change in delivering long-term care and a set of future scenarios of social support and long-term care. During the group discussion, ESN has contributed practice examples of social services that implement social investment measures over the life-course and developed new organisational responses for innovative approaches in long-term care.
The first results of the MoPAcT research project can be found here.