This is a half-day event aimed primarily at UCL staff from postdoctoral research associates to senior lecturers who work on ageing research in a wide variety of disciplines, including epidemiology, bioscience, neuroscience, engineering, economics and infection and immunity.

Event background
UCL has significant strength in ageing research, particularly in cohort studies, dementia, neurodegenerative disease, inflammation and biology and animal models of ageing. There is also considerable expertise in age associated cardiovascular disease, age-related and neurodegenerative disease and many other age-related syndromes. Furthermore, the UCL Crucible Centre has a cross-disciplinary research remit to facilitate the wellbeing of older people. There are also 148 researchers in 27 Research Departments, Institutes or Divisions identified in the IRIS ageing theme at UCL. The total active current grant income of these researchers is ~£98,067,960. Although not all of this income relates to ageing, these figures identify the considerable success in funding and expertise available for the investigation of ageing and age-related degenerative processes at UCL.

However, key researchers at UCL that work on ageing are unfamiliar with other scientists who work in different age-related disciplines. This is a missed opportunity, especially given the increased focus on lifelong health and wellbeing in the Government’s current priorities for research funding.

In February 2016 an initial event was held for senior Principal Investigators, which took the first step towards consolidating ageing research and expertise across UCL, encouraging new collaborations, and preparing possible responses for future funding opportunities.

Event purpose
The purpose of this second meeting is therefore to enable more junior UCL researchers working on all aspects of ageing to network and to encourage new collaborations.

Event format
As you will see from the draft programme below, the first half of the event will consist of plenary talks on six of the key areas of ageing research at UCL. The second half of the event will be an interactive networking session, aimed at getting the diverse range of researchers in the audience together to network across the disciplines. 

Reserve your place, view the full programme and download more materials at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucl-ageing-event-cultivating-research-connections-across-the-university-tickets-26964250800