As you will know the mantle of SPARC is being passed to KT-EQUAL. This new EPSRC initiative is determined to ensure that older people, disabled people and society benefit from the nation's investment in research by making sure that research knowledge is transferred and used by those many stakeholders with an interest in the wellbeing and quality of life of older and disabled people. It will take a while for KT-EQUAL to be fully up-and-running, as staff have to be recruited and resources aligned to its special mission, however we do plan to run plenty of workshops in the months to come.
I am pleased to tell you that the first workshop, convened by Professor Gail Mountain, Enabling people with dementia and their carers through the use of new technologies will take place on 16th March, at Reading Town Hall (very near the railway station).
Dementia is an area of significant policy concern, demonstrated through the forthcoming publication of the National Dementia Strategy. This will identify targets for early diagnosis and improved interventions to promote better care. This workshop will provide participants with illustrations of best practice from existing and current research with a focus upon use of technologies which can promote enablement and quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers.
The workshop is free but places are limited, so please register your interest as soon as possible via the SPARC website www.sparc.ac.uk and follow the links.
Stop Press there are two new interviews with researchers available on the SPARC website: Dr Meredith Shafto talks about her research into those annoying tip of the tongue lapses which seem to become more familiar with advancing years, and Dr Maria Wolters discuses her research into improving computerised speech used by automated call centres, lifts, sat navs and other devices. These can be found on the audio interview panel on the right hand side of the home page. There are now 20 interviews available about a broad range of SPARC projects. Also, the SPARC web site has executive summaries of most of these projects.
Best wishes
Peter Lansley
Professor Peter Lansley, BSc, MSc, PhD, MCIOB, FCOT
Director, SPARC - Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity
School of Construction Management and Engineering, URS Building,
University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 219, Reading, RG6 6AW, UK
tel: +44 (0) 118 378 8202 fax: +44 (0) 118 931 3856
p.r.lansley@reading.ac.uk www.sparc.ac.uk
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