Stimulating Ageing-related Housing Research from the Bottom Up

Summary The last decade has seen the development of a novel and effective approach to facilitating design and engineering research to address the needs of disabled and older people especially in housing and related areas. This has had some dramatic successes, with major inputs to the development of British Standards, building regulations and the requirements of government organisations on providers of social housing and improvements to professional practice as well as directly contributing to the lives of disabled and older people. The approach has been built on a recognition of the importance of an interdisciplinary approach, the involvement of the agencies which work with disabled and older people and appreciating the expertise and knowledge of disabled and older people and their potential contribution to the research process. Keywords -research policy, quality-of-life, older people, interdisciplinarity Introduction The issues faced by disabled people and older people because of the design of their homes and the relationship between their homes and the broader built environment was largely neglected as a topic for research throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Even though the situation has improved, except in areas of specialist housing, support continues to be patchy. However, since 1998 there has been an important series of housing research projects funded by EPSRC, principally through its EQUAL Initiative. These have influenced both policy and practice in the adaptation of existing housing and the design of new housing as well as neighbourhoods and environments