Ageing Societies: Challenges and Opportunities for Public Policy, Innovation, and Community Development

Dear Colleagues,

One of the assumptions behind the discussion on innovations for ageing societies in recent years is a hypothesis that the novel approaches to social, health, and care services used by the non-governmental sector, informal sector, and hybrid organizations may provide more efficient and positive responses to the challenges of the ageing populations than the solutions offered so far, mainly by entities of the public sector and the private sector. Examples of such innovations include, among others, Universities of the Third Age, lifelong learning entities, senior centers, age-friendly cities and communities, intergenerational programs, dementia-friendly initiatives, senior theatres, self-help organizations, time banks, e-health services, social and service robotics, smart housing solutions, cohousing solutions, and senior entrepreneurship programs as well as information, communication, and assistance schemes.

Nevertheless, as noted by the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, supported by the European Commission, the scaling up of social, health, and technological innovations is a challenge for public policy concerning ageing. Coping with this challenge requires a detailed identification of the supporting and inhibiting factors at all levels of policy and governance before significant investments are made in the further development of innovations, for both older adults and ageing people. In other words, to foster the implementation of the United Nations concept of “a society for all ages” and intergenerational solidarity.

This Special Issue will gather the theoretical and empirical findings related to the scaling up of innovative projects for active and healthy ageing, with a particular focus on case studies, initiatives, and policies that are crucial for both regional and local development in the context of contemporary demographic changes.

Potential topics of the papers include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Use of the ageing policy concepts (e.g., healthy ageing, active ageing, creative ageing, ageing in place, and intergenerational policy).

- Governance, public management, and organizational management in the field of ageing.

- Sustainable development goals in relation to ageing, health and community care, support, and empowerment.

- Age-friendly environments, cities, and communities.

- The alternative economic models in relation to ageing (e.g., the silver economy, the longevity economy, the social and solidarity economy, and the sharing economy).

- Social, health, and technological innovation.

- Co-design, co-creation, and co-production schemes in the ageing services.

- Use of various forms of capital in ageing-related challenges (e.g., social capital, cultural capital, and creative capital).

- Measures for contrasting social isolation and loneliness.

- Digital ageism, AI ageism, the digital divide, and the robotics divide in ageing societies.

- Opportunities, controversies, as well as ethical, security, and privacy issues related to, among others, digital social innovation, e-health, gerontechnology, welfare technologies, smart technologies, ambient assisted living, and artificial intelligence/machine learning solutions.

All contributions must address the topic of the Special Issue in one of the following formats: article, conceptual paper, or review.

Dr. Andrzej Klimczuk
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• active ageing
• age-friendly cities and communities
• ageing in place
• ageism
• ambient assisted living
• artificial intelligence
• co-production
• dementia-friendly initiatives
• digital divide
• e-health
• gerontechnologies
• gerontology
• health and social care
• innovation
• intergenerational relationships
• neighborhoods
• older people
• older populations
• public health
• public policy on ageing
• scaling of innovations
• silver economy
• smart cities
• social and solidarity economy
• social policy
• social work
• sustainability
• universal design
• welfare state