Research activities

Built and technical environments

As pointed out in the FUTURAGE Road Map for European Ageing Research, built and technical environments represent an area, which can provide countless innovative opportunities.

Built and technical environments are a relatively novel, but nevertheless essential theme within ageing research. Within the last two decades or so ageing research began to see the environment – homes and communities – as a central aspect. This includes person-environment dynamics as well as the importance of physical-spatial-technical (PST) environments along the process of ageing (Wahl and Iwarsson, 2007).

PST environments include the “full range of private living units, neighbourhoods, retirement communities, workplaces, shops and other service facilities, public transport facilities as well as long-term care institutions, hospitals, other health care facilities and products” (Walker et al., 2011). This listing covers a broad variety of different areas; this report concentrated on three of them: ICT, housing and mobility. Within these areas we focused on five different countries: Finland, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, each representing a different profile with unique characteristics, initial position, challenges as well as opportunities.

All three topics play a major role within the context of ageing: With increasing age, people spend most of their time at home – which usually is their preference. Thus being at home creates identity and implies the feeling of security. But this does not mean to be socially and physically excluded from the (social and local) community. Social inclusion and mobility depend largely on infrastructure and public as well as individual transport.

This research field comprised of four tasks which resulted in four central deliverables:

1. Trend monitoring

This task identified and analysed innovative ICT, mobility and housing trends which were addressed to meet the needs of elderly in each of the named countries. Based on a detailed international literature review and on research for appropriate national and international initiatives and R&D projects trend reports for each of the three topics were provided. These identified potential benefits for both the elderly and the economy as well as giving an informed understanding of barriers and driving forces.

The research focused on

  • realised or expected benefits for older people

  • funding strategies and business models

  • political frameworks

  • perspectives for acceptance (by the target groups) and diffusion

  • economic effects and expected impact.

2. Case studies of best practice

This task identified best practice examples for each of the three topics and analysed these examples in case studies. A research protocol included the guidelines for interviews with different stakeholders as well as end-users. Moreover, the protocol defined the proceedings for conducting SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis focused on the identified internal and external factors, which help or hinder achieving the aimed goals, as well as on the external environment. The results of this task were summarised in a hand-out, discussed below.

3. Multi-level review and validation

As a first step we conducted an internet-based Delphi method, involving international experts on ICT, housing and mobility. Therefore we accessed existing European and national networks. Based on the results of our research, there was an international workshop, not only covering European members, but also inviting experts from American (US, Canada) and Asian countries (Japan and South Korea). Those countries have comparable demographic developments and hence play a huge role in ICT, housing and mobility solutions for the elderly. Japan and South Korea have a lot of experience and knowledge in relation to developing business models on innovative technical concepts. The workshop reflected the conclusion of tasks 1 and 2 and provided essential input for the trend reports.

4. Trend reports

We used the results of tasks 1–3 to write a trend report for each topic, covering the conclusions from the different countries. Moreover, the trend reports contained policy and business recommendations for the different stakeholders.

References

Wahl, H-W. and Iwarsson, S. (2007) ‘Person-environment relations in old age‘, in Fernandez-Ballesteros, R. (ed.) Geropsychology. European perspectives for an ageing world. Göttingen, Hogrefe, pp. 49–66. Also available as Spanish translation, Ediciones Pirámide.

Walker, A. et al., FUTURAGE: A Road Map for European Ageing Research, 2011. Available at: http://futurage.group.shef.ac.uk/road-map.html