CARDI Offers Research Grants on Older People

The Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland (CARDI) launches a grants programme today to improve policies and services for older people.

It is inviting applications for grants to fund cross-border research or to create networks of academics and the public, private and voluntary sectors that will examine issues that arise out of an ageing society in Ireland, north and south.

The grants will encourage ground-breaking studies that bring together different perspectives and academic subjects. Projects that are funded will involve older people themselves and will aim to promote better policies and improved services for them.

CARDI will be allocating €200,000 to the first call, which closes on 9 March, and will be following up with two further allocations of money over the next year.

"Ireland's population is ageing," said CARDI director, Dr Roger O'Sullivan. "One million people aged 60 and above now live on the island of Ireland and the largest increase in coming years will be in the older old eg the number aged 80+ is expected to triple by 2031.

"But while life expectancy has increased, it is not clear that life without disability and ill health has increased to the same extent. A growing number of older people may be facing the combined effects of a decline in physical and mental function, isolation and poverty.

"The CARDI grants programme will stimulate research into the urgent and complicated issues of ageing. It plans to promote co-operation among medical specialists, technologists, social scientists, psychologists and many others to create a society in which older people can lead long, healthy, active lives," Dr O'Sullivan added.

More information about the grants, including an application form that can be completed on-line, is on the website www.cardi.ie/grantprogramme or email info@cardi.ie.

CARDI is a not for profit organisation developed by leaders from the ageing field across Ireland (North and South) with support from The Atlantic Philanthropies. It is overseen by a Steering Group chaired jointly by Professors Robert Stout, Queen's University Belfast, and Davis Coakley, Trinity College Dublin and St James's Hospital. CARDI is hosted by the Institute of Public Health in Ireland and has offices in Belfast and Dublin.