Alan Walker has been researching the quality of life of older people for three decades. Now the man who headed the ESRC's Growing Older Programme is responsible for an even more ambitious programme, a new five-year interdisciplinary study on The New Dynamics of Ageing. Seldom has such research been so relevant. Malcolm Dean spoke to him.
Alan Walker is a hard man to catch up with but he is well worth the effort. Few academics have been tracking the quality of life of older people for so long. He began in the early 1970s. Older people have never been as high on the political agenda with the debate about retirement ages already in full swing, the Pensions Commission due to report at the end of November, and a new law on age discrimination coming into force next year. It is no wonder his diary is so full.
"In terms of postponing disability, we have only begun scratching the surface."
His own studies on Ageing in Europe require travel, his 20-year long social policy professorship at Sheffield University includes supervising ten PhD students among other duties, and he is a member of the new independent advisory group that David Blunkett, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, set up to advise on pension reform. He has even been into Downing Street to make a presentation on current research findings.
But overshadowing all these posts in his portfolio is his new job as director of one of the boldest current research ventures in Britain: a new five-year interdisciplinary research programme on The New Dynamics of Ageing. He is familiar with dealing with daunting challenges having been the director of the ESRC's Growing Older (GO) Programme, the largest social science programme on ageing ever mounted in the UK. Approved in 1998, the £3.5 million GO Programme involved some 94 researchers working on 24 projects which finally concluded in December, 2003.
...the new programme will involve basic scientists, biologists, geneticists, medical scientists, engineers, technologists and clinicians...
Its coverage was both wide and deep. It ranged from measuring the quality of life of older people to producing new insights into exclusion, loneliness and wellbeing. There were an impressive number of 'firsts' - the first representative study of QoL (quality of life) as well as a new theoretically-based measuring tool; the first national study of loneliness for 50 years; the first representative study of the impact of exclusion on older people in deprived areas; the most comprehensive research so far on black and ethnic ageing; one of the few studies of older men; a novel study on healthy ageing; and a rare look at people working beyond retirement age to name but a few.
But instead of one research council he now has to ride four - not just the ESRC but the MRC (Medical Research Council), EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council). Instead of a £3.5 million budget it will be £12.5 million, possibly rising to £15 million. Instead of five years, it could last eight. Instead of dealing with just social scientists, the new Programme will also involve basic scientists, biologists, geneticists, medical scientists, engineers, technologists and clinicians as well. Walker has long admired the early initiatives of the US in promoting collaboration between disciplines. As long ago as 1974, the US Congress authorised - and funded - the National Institute of Aging to provide collaboration in ageing research.
"...researchers will no longer work in their individual boxes but across a broad front. Ageing does not take place in pigeon holes. It should be tackled holistically."
It was only four years ago that Britain's four research councils set up the National Collaboration on Ageing Research (NCAR) to promote interdisciplinary collaboration. Last year they went one step further in approving the jointly funded New Dynamics of Ageing Programme. The director's post, which was open to all, was won by Alan Walker, placing a further feather in the ESRC's cap. There will be four waves of projects - all of them multidisciplinary. There were 292 expressions of interest in the first wave, now whittled down to ten.
Alan Walker was an apt choice. He does not just want to understand the quality of life of older people but improve it too. To achieve this goal collaboration with other scientists is crucial. As Walker notes, we begin to age from the day we are born. What happens in the early and middle years play an important role later in life. He noted that as well as extending life expectancy by 25 years in the last century, we have also delayed the onset of morbidity. But he went on: "In terms of postponing disability, we have only begun scratching the surface."
"There is a huge potential for longer and better quality lives. It is up to social scientists to shed more light on the consequences of these changes."
This is one of the exciting fronts the new Programme could open up, he says: "It means researchers will no longer work in their individual boxes but across a broad front. Ageing does not take place in pigeon holes. It should be tackled holistically." He is used to meeting and debating with scientists from other disciplines including a morning with Tom Kirkwood, the biologist and Reith lecturer on ageing, on Melvyn Bragg's BBC Radio Four discussion slot In Our Time. He confessed: "I have huge respect for Tom as a scientist. There is a huge potential for longer and better quality lives. It is up to social scientists to shed more light on the consequences of these changes."
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