Ageing and Dementia

Our faculty are experts in their fields, and they are passionate about helping students conduct high-quality research that makes a difference in the world. We offer a vibrant, supportive environment for postgraduate researchers.

Find out more about our research degrees and PhD subjects.

Our research finds innovative solutions to improve the lives of people living with dementia, and the care and support offered to families with dementia around the world.

We collaborate closely with partners in academia, practice and policy as well as directly involving people with dementia and their unpaid carers in our teaching and research work.

The Dementia Services Development Centre provides a key link from our research to the delivery of services and support to people with dementia through their international training and consultancy work and their expertise in dementia and design.

As part of the REF2021 submission for Social Work and Social Policy, 85 per cent of our research was judged world-leading or internationally excellent and 87 per cent of our impact activity was judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent, as was the research environment.

Research highlights

Division researchers are part of the UKRI Connecting Generations project, which seeks to understand intergenerational connectivity in UK society. We are also a partner of IMPACT: Improving Adult Care Together. IMPACT is the UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care.

The EnAct-Dem Project centres the lived experience of dementia within policy, practice and community development.

We host world-leading social research in dementia and gerontology. We are the home of the UKRI Social, Behavioural and Design Research programme, which provides insights into the needs and opportunities posed by an ageing population.  This programme includes two projects.

• Designing Homes for Healthy Cognitive Ageing (DesHCA) explores how to create new models for housing which can support healthy cognitive ageing.
• The Generating Older Active Lives Digitally (GOALD) project is examining how technology can support older people’s health and wellbeing across generations, places and spaces.

Our research also focuses on building dementia-inclusive communities for people living with dementia. The Our Connected Neighbourhoods project has produced a range of tools that can support communities to engage directly with people living with dementia to make their communities more dementia inclusive.

Our focus on evaluation of practice in dementia care research and delivery has informed the development of local and national dementia care projects. This work includes the evaluation of the activities of the Life Changes Trust. We evaluate local and national projects, including social interventions such as dementia-friendly walking groups, and the adoption of social interventions in care homes.

Our members regularly contribute to Scottish and UK wide dementia care policy development. 

We are a UK leader in ageing and dementia with international collaborations in Japan, India and countries in sub-Saharan Africa.