People

With ICSG being a constituent centre within the Institute for Lifecourse & Society (ILAS), I have developed collaborations with the many of the units including the Health Economics and Policy Analysis, the Centre for Disability, Law and Public Policy as well as the Community Knowledge Initiative and the UNECSO Child and Family Research Centre. Other internal collaborations include more broadly the School of Business and Economics and colleagues in the Discipline of Management, Economics and Business Information Systems (BIS). I established a Cross Institute Ageing Assembly that represents and coordinates interdisciplinary research on ageing at the University of Galway and aims to reflect positive change and innovation that enhances and supports the lives and engagement of older people. It draws on areas of cross institute complementarity across the University of Galway¿s research institutes and a large number of ageing related work programmes that are ongoing in the University. Cross Institute Ageing Assembly Members include colleagues from the School of Engineering, CÚRAM, the School of Nursing & Midwifery, the School of Health Sciences as well as colleagues in the School of Political Science & Sociology, School of Geography, Archaeology & Irish Studies and School of Law.

Much of the research work I have been involved with in the ICSG has required collaboration with industry partners, stakeholder organisations and a range of academic colleagues and institutions. The following is a summary of those collaborations and of the context in which they have occurred. I have extensive collaboration across European and International country contexts as evidenced by my nomination as Chair of the ROSEnet COST Action CA15122 on `Reducing old-age social exclusion, whereby I oversaw (from 2016 to 2020) a programme of capacity building for a network of approximately 70 early career researchers (out of over 200 members overall) from across Europe, including a PhD Forum, training schools, network-wide workshops, publication master classes and mentor-led collaborative writing projects. Currently as Scientific Coordinator of the MSCA HOMeAGE doctoral training programme (from 2023), I have led on the development of a network wide training programme for 12 doctoral researchers (DRs) based in nine European countries and representing a group of 11 different nationalities, with nine individuals from low- and middle-income contexts. This has meant bringing together a group of 25 partners, and integrating lived experience (homeage older adult reference group) and coproduction (with DRs) approaches. International Project Partners: The research on the role of migrant care workers in ageing societies was completed in conjunction with colleagues from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS - University of Oxford), the Oxford Institute of Ageing (University of Oxford), the Institute for the study of International Migration (Georgetown University) and the Community Health Research Unit (Ottawa University). This is an on-going collaboration, which has also led to an application being made to the ESRC-DFID joint research funding scheme with colleagues in COMPAS on the globalisation of care drain: migration, ageing and welfare development for older people left behind. HARC and SEADRC Partners: Several of my earlier projects (HARC and social exclusion and ageing in diverse rural communities - SEADRC) were cross-border research initiatives involving academic colleagues and stakeholder partners. These collaborations involve colleagues from the ICSG, the discipline of Geography in the University of Galway, the Institute of Spatial and Environmental Planning (Queen's University), the Centre for Health Improvement (Queen's University), the Rural Community Network (stakeholder organisation - Tyrone), FORUM (stakeholder organisation - Letterfrack, Galway) and the Public Health Agency Northern Ireland. This collaboration stemmed from the HARC research network and led to further funding success in the form of the SEADRC project. International Network on Rural Ageing and International Working Groups on Operationalising Social Exclusion: I worked closely with colleagues from universities and institutes in a number of world regions on two collaborative initiatives concerning the development of an International Network on Rural Ageing and concerning the operationalisation of age-related social exclusion. These individuals include colleagues from North America, Africa and Europe and come from Swansea University, University of Alberta; the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute; University of Lapland; Newcastle University; La Trobe University; Ashesi University.