91´óÉñ

Introduction

I was delighted to be selected as one of the five University of Edinburgh research students to attend the Universitas 21 Graduate Research Conference 2014 on 'Celebrating Ageing Research' at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Of the five Edinburgh students; Dean Houston, Vanitha Subramaniam, myself, Edgar Rodriguez Sanchez and Stina Viljus, three of us were to give oral presentations and two give poster presentations on our doctoral research topics. I was chosen to give a poster presentation entitled 'Working for longer? Exploration of relationship between women’s identity and how they respond to a later retirement age'. After a few logistical issues regarding transporting an A0 size poster to the other side of the world, it was time to commence my long flight to New Zealand.

Conference day 1

The keynote address on the first morning was given by Professor Merryn Gott. She discussed the use of images to challenge stereotypes of ageing women and her presentation was very interesting and highly relevant to my research. We were pre-assigned to groups and in the afternoon session we were given a time slot to have a group workshop. The questions we had to address as a group were: Are Hospitals always the best place to deliver health services? What are the long term impacts of ageing for the hospital system? How might we respond to those challenges? All the groups had a good mix of delegates from a variety of different research disciplines which made our discussions very thought-provoking.

The keynote speaker at the end of the first conference day was the distinguished Professor Sir Peter Gluckman. It was a privilege to listen to his presentation on ‘The National Science Challenges: Ageing Well’. A great start to the conference!

Conference day 2

The second day of the conference brought a very interesting selection of oral presentations, with the morning session theme 'The ‘cost' of Ageing' being of particular interest to me. Today's keynote speech was given by Associate Professor Susan St John. I am familiar with some of her work and her talk on 'Policy Research and the Economics of Ageing' was very useful considering my PhD topic concerns looking at retirement policies in the UK and how they will affect women.

There was a further group workshop session in the afternoon to work on our presentation questions. These group workshop sessions have given me a fantastic opportunity to discuss my research and that of others, in a more intimate environment. I have identified people in my group that I could do potential collaborative research with in the future. This illustrates the importance of the networking opportunities provided by the conference group sessions.

Conference day 3

The poster presentation session was on the third day. The posters had been put up in the atrium on the first morning and remained there for the duration of the conference. This was a good thing, as all breaks and lunches were taken in the atrium and allowed my fellow conference goers plenty of time to find out about my PhD research. Although I am in the third year of my PhD and have given oral presentations at several conferences, this was my first opportunity to give a conference poster presentation. This presented me with two challenges; firstly, to be very concise and selective with the information displayed on my poster and secondly, to give a much more time-constrained short oral presentation of my research to a panel of judges and the other conference delegates, followed by a question and answer session. I received very positive and helpful feedback from my poster during and after this session.

The afternoon was set aside for fieldtrips, which included a trip to The University of Auckland Centre for Brain Research and the university’s robotics lab. The guided tour around the Brain Research Centre was very interesting, particularly after hearing several presentations that discussed research on the ageing brain. The trip to the robotics lab included a demonstration of two different Health Bots which were created to help older people, particularly in their homes and also to help reduce waiting times in doctors’ surgeries. We also were given the opportunity to interact with the robots after the demonstration which was great fun. Learning how technology is advancing and addressing the demands of an ageing population around the world was fascinating.

The conference day closed with a memorable conference dinner in the Auckland Sky Tower in the Orbit 360∙ rotating restaurant and provided another opportunity to meet more delegates. We learned more about New Zealand from a ‘True or False NZ’ facts quiz we were tasked with completing at each table e.g. New Zealand many years ago appointed a national wizard! And the New Zealand Air Force has a Kiwi, a flightless bird, as their logo!

Conference day 4

On the final day of the conference, each group (as assigned on the first day) gave a 20min presentation on their allocated topics. There was great variety in the group presentations and in part I think this came down to the mix of nationalities/cultures, universities and research backgrounds (science and social science) of the conference delegates. I was pleasantly surprised when the judging panel awarded my group the prize for the best presentation! We were each presented with a University of Auckland goodie bag.

Overview

The U21 graduate research conference has given me a wonderful opportunity to network with people who are doing research on ageing, similar to myself, but who I would not normally get the opportunity to meet, as they work in very different research disciplines and live all over the world. I believe that this opportunity to attend an international, multi-disciplinary conference made us acutely aware of the importance of cross-disciplinary research. To address the multi-faceted topic of ageing research, we must be aware of the research occurring in other disciplines within our research field, in order to identify where important research links may be created that will advance our knowledge in this area of concern to all societies.

I would strongly recommend the U21 programme of future events to fellow University of Edinburgh research students. It is an excellent opportunity to connect with fellow researchers from other research intense universities around the world.

With thanks

I wish to thank the University of Edinburgh Graduate School for funding my travel and conference fees to attend the U21 conference in Auckland. Additional thanks go to Jamie Tait, the Edinburgh University projects officer, who answered all my queries regarding the conference application and attendance process. Finally, I must thank my supervisor, Professor Wendy Loretto, for her continued support with my PhD research work.