This article provides a policy-oriented overview of the five-year ESRC Growing Older Programme of research on quality of life in old age: the largest UK social sciences research endeavour to date in the field of ageing. By way of an introduction to the Growing Older Programme, its main objectives are stated and some of its unique contributions to knowledge and research methods are summarised. Then the bulk of the article focuses on the relationship between research and policy: first in general terms and then specifically with regard to the operation of and outputs from the Programme. The particular methods used by the Programme to engage with the policy process are described, within a broad enlightenment framework. This is followed by an outline of the key elements of a multi-dimensional approach to extending the quality of later life. The five priority elements of this skeletal strategy -inequalities in old age, environments of ageing, economic and family roles, participation and involvement, and frailty and identity -are derived from the Growing Older Programme's comprehensive evidence base. In each case the policy implications of the research evidence are illustrated. Finally, the role of older people in living their own lives of quality is discussed, and the results of the Programme are used to show how aspects of both structure and agency combine to determine the quality of later life.
IntroductionThe ESRC Growing Older (GO) Research Programme was the UK's largest single investment in social sciences research on ageing, some £3.5 million, and comprised 24 projects with, when it was operating at full capacity, 96 researchers. Both the individual projects and the Programme as a whole have generated a wealth of data and analyses, from 24 GO Findings summaries to more than 200 scientific papers and its own book series. The results of the projects and their specific policy implications have been, or are in the process of being, disseminated widely. As yet, however, the combined policy implications of the GO Programme have not been discussed and that is the main purpose of this article. Indeed, it is argued that they provide the basis for a concerted policy approach to maximising the quality of later life. Before that there is a brief outline of the objectives and construction of the Programme and then an account of how the Programme set about addressing