Ageing, one of the largest risk factors for many complex diseases, is highly interconnected to metabolic processes. Investigating the changes in metabolite concentration during ageing among healthy individuals offers us unique insights to healthy ageing. We aim to identify ageing-associated metabolites that are independent from chronological age to deepen our understanding of the long-term changes in metabolites upon ageing. Sex-stratified longitudinal analyses were performed using fasting serum samples of 590 healthy KORA individuals (317 women and 273 men) who participated in both baseline (KORA S4) and seven-year follow-up (KORA F4) studies. Replication was conducted using serum samples of 386 healthy CARLA participants (195 women and 191 men) in both baseline (CARLA-0) and four-year follow-up (CARLA-1) studies. Generalized estimation equation models were performed on each metabolite to identify ageing-associated metabolites after adjusting for baseline chronological age, body mass index, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol intake and systolic blood pressure. Literature researches were conducted to understand their biochemical relevance. Out of 122 metabolites analysed, we identified and replicated five (C18, arginine, ornithine, serine and tyrosine) and four (arginine, ornithine, PC aa C36:3 and PC ae C40:5) significant metabolites in women and men respectively. Arginine decreased, while ornithine increased in both sexes. These metabolites are involved in several ageing processes: apoptosis, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, lipid metabolism, autophagy and oxidative stress resistance. The study reveals several significant ageing-associated metabolite changes with two-time-point measurements on healthy individuals. Larger studies are required to confirm our findings.

In response to European Commission Horizon 2020’s call for ‘science-for-and-with-community’, scholars have recognized the need to conduct ‘responsible research and innovation’ and engage more with communities to combat today’s complex health challenges. Hence, higher priority has been placed to cooperate with communities in health research and innovation development to better match societal values, needs and expectations. Accordingly, the approach of community-based participatory research (CBPR), the ‘gold standard’ within the community-engaged research spectrum, is the most widely discussed. However, it is seldom achieved in reality, as it requires establishment and maintenance of open, transparent, trustful and ongoing relationships between community partners and academia to succeed. Paradoxically, despite of the significance of quality collaborative relationship to the quality and success of community-academic collaboration, the key elements to achieve it were seldom discussed.Herein, the literature review aimed to (1) discuss the previous experiences and challenges in building and sustaining community-academic collaborative relationships; (2) examine the relationship building strategies for quality collaborative relationships; and (3) identify the potential research gaps for future research.Focusing on the area of health research and innovation, peer-reviewed articles, books and grey literature related to building and sustaining relationships in community-academic collaboration published between 1998 and 2018 were identified using the Web of Science, PubMed and Google Scholar bibliographic databases and Google search engine. Literature available in full-texts and English language with a focus on relationship aspects of community-academic collaboration were examined. Previous literature suggested thatacademics and community members encountered common challenges in experiencing inequitable relationships, distrust, divide between academia and community, uncommon norms of power sharing, dissemination of results and lack of resources for maintaining long-term relationships. Two approaches of relationship building: (1) personal qualities and competence, and (2) actions for relationship building from the beginning to the end stages of collaborative relationship were discussed. Literature revealed that the ways that academics approach, collaborate, communicate with and maintain in the community had significant impact on both current and future collaborative relationships. In addition, academics differed in acceptance and readiness towards community engagement, which could be attributed to the differences in personal qualities and competence. Future research should target on identifying the factors contributing to such individual differences and compare its impact on the quality of relationship with community, so as to better cultivate individuals’ readiness and capacity towards community engagement and effective relationship building with community.

To deepen our understanding of how project leaders can lead effectively in different community-academic health partnerships (CAHPs), we conducted an inductive, qualitative study through semi-structured interviews (N = 32) and analyzed the data with Grounded Theory approaches. By presenting a process model illustrating the cycle of effective leaders(hip) in CAHP projects, we contribute to the literature on CAHP, leadership development, and complexity leadership theory in three ways. Firstly, the model depicts the strategies enabling leaders to navigate typical project challenges and perform leadership tasks effectively. Secondly, we distill four beneficial qualities (i.e., adopting a proactive attitude, having an open and adaptive mindset, relying on peer learning and support, and emphasizing self-growth and reflexivity) which CAHP project leaders require to develop themselves into effective leaders. Thirdly, we illustrate leaders' dynamic developmental logics and processes of effective leadership and their contributions to better project functioning in diverse CAHPs.

PurposeCombining the goal-setting and job demands-resources (JD-R) theories, we examine how two project resources, collaborative project leadership and financial project resources, enhance high project performance in community-academic health partnerships.Design/methodology/approachWith a sequential explanatory mixed-method research design, data were collected through a survey (N = 318) and semi-structured interviews (N = 21). A hypothesised three-path mediation model was tested using structural equation modelling with bootstrapping. Qualitative data were examined using thematic analysis.FindingsProject workers’ hope, goal-commitment and -stress: (1) fully mediate the hypothesised relationship between highly collaborative project leadership and high project performance; and (2) partially mediate the relationship between financial project resources and high project performance. The qualitative data corroborate and deepen these findings, revealing the crucial role of hope as a cognitive-motivational facilitator in project workers’ ability to cope with challenges.Practical implicationsProject leaders should promote project workers’ goal commitment, reduce their goal stress and boost project performance by securing financial project resources or reinforcing workers’ hope, e.g. by fostering collaborative project leadership.Originality/valueThe findings contribute to the project management and JD-R literature by considering the joint effects of project workers’ hope and two commonly studied project resources (collaborative project leadership and financial project resources) on high project performance. Moreover, we demonstrate the importance of the goal-setting and JD-R theories for understanding complex health-promotion projects connecting academic to community work.

ZusammenfassungIn einer Gruppe von Experten*innen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis möchtet ihr eine konkrete gesellschaftliche Problemlösung erarbeiten und habt dafür ein gemeinsames Projekt ins Auge gefasst? Dabei weichen nicht selten bei Projektbeginn die Erwartungen der Teilnehmenden im Hinblick auf die Projektziele voneinander ab.