Category Archives: Events

Katherine and Sarah at Active Living Research 2016

This week, two of our researchers are at ALR2016 in Florida, USA.

The Active Living Research Annual Conference brings together researchers and active living champions from over 30 disciplines to advance knowledge and action around active communities.

The 2016 conference theme, Equity in Active Living, explores opportunities to ensure that all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, economic background, level of education, age, sexual orientation, gender identify, physical and/or cognitive ability, have access to safe and enjoyable places to be physically active.

Katherine Brookfield and Sara Tilley are delivering two of the three papers in the Conference session on Older Adults; only 20 academics papers were accepted to the conference overall (in addition to 20 by practitioners), so the team have done exceptionally well.

And they won’t miss this gorgeous January weather in Edinburgh…

Edinburgh in the rain

Introducing our fourth international conference…

We are delighted to announce an international conference on Habitats for Happy and Healthy Ageing.

The conference will take place in Edinburgh on 11th – 14th October 2016.

This is the first announcement of the call for presentation and poster abstracts.

The call, and details of online submission, will be forthcoming later in January 2016.

The conference themes are:

Theme 1: Healthy, happy and active ageing

How can we realise healthy, happy and active ageing for all?

We invite abstracts that consider diverse factors including exercise, nutrition, service provision, assistive technologies and adaptations, income and benefits, social isolation and participation.

Theme 2: Co-design and the built environment

What makes an environment age-friendly? How can we better involve user groups in the design of our built environment?

We invite abstracts on the physical design of age-friendly environments at a range of scales, from individual homes to the neighbourhood and the wider community, as well as on innovative methods of co-design, particularly those engaging older adults.

Theme 3: Experiencing mobility

What does mobility mean for older adults? How is it experienced and perceived?

We invite abstracts on various aspects of ageing and mobility including mobility behaviours and practices, aids and barriers to mobility, what motivates mobility, and older people’s experiences and perceptions of outdoor mobility.

Theme 4: Lifecourse of health and place

Does an individual’s place of birth, and the places in which they have lived, influence their health in later life? What might the introduction of a lifecourse perspective bring to our understanding of the relationship between health and place?

We invite abstracts on the relationship between health and place as conceived through a lifecourse perspective. This could be through the use of historical environmental data, or other approaches.

We are delighted to confirm the following keynote speakers:

  • Professor Billie Giles-Corti, Director, McCaughey VicHealth Community Wellbeing Unit Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health
  • Professor Gloria Gutman, Vice-President, International Longevity Centre Canada and Professor/Director Emerita, Simon Fraser University Gerontology Research Centre
  • Professor Richard Sennett, Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and University Professor of the Humanities at New York University
  • Professor Sarah Wigglesworth, Director, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects and Professor of Architecture, University of Sheffield

The Welcome Address will be given by Dr Heidrun Mollenkopf, Vice President of AGE Platform Europe and Member of the AGE Universal Accessibility and Independent Living Expert Group.

To register your interest and receive future conference announcements, please email OPENspace@ed.ac.uk


Logo for Open Space People Space conference seriesThe conference is the fourth in the international Open Space : People Space (OSPS) series. Previous OSPS conferences have taken place in Edinburgh in 2004, 2007 and 2011.
Find out more about previous OPENspace conferences

 

Catharine gives guest lecture in Prague

Catharine has visited Prague to give a Proměny Foundation lecture on children, greenspace, play and the urban environment.

The Proměny Foundation is a Czech non-profit organisation founded in 2006 by Karel Komárek. Its ‘Playful Garden’ grant scheme holds the International Play Association’s Right to Play Award 2014 for helping to transform Czech school gardens into inspiring environments.

The Foundation facilitates co-design between children, teachers and parents; Catharine’s talk, Child’s play and the outdoors: the importance of access to green and natural environments, is part of a series of events taking place in school gardens and playgrounds, libraries and even a railway station.

You can watch an interview with Catharine on the Proměny Foundation YouTube channel (in English, with Czech subtitles). Her visit has also been covered by The Week, Respekt and Týden.

Link to an interview with Catharine

Watch an interview with Catharine on YouTube

 

> Find out more about the Proměny Foundation