The University of Aberdeen has secured one of just 10 prestigious Leverhulme Centenary Doctoral Scholarship awards announced across the UK, receiving up to £5 million to establish a pioneering doctoral programme exploring social connectivity in later life.
Led by Professor Louise Phillips, Chair in Psychology, the programme will help a new generation of researchers to understand how social relationships influence health, wellbeing and resilience as people age.
The award forms part of the Leverhulme Trust's £50 million investment in doctoral education, marking its centenary by supporting exceptional academic talent and innovative interdisciplinary research.
Professor Phillips said: “The programme responds to one of the most significant challenges facing ageing societies. While social connection is one of the strongest predictors of health and wellbeing in later life, around one in four older adults worldwide experience loneliness.
“Population ageing, changing family structures and rapid technological change are reshaping how people connect, creating an urgent need for new research that brings together expertise from the social, behavioural and data sciences.”
Doctoral scholars will have access to world-leading facilities, including behavioural and neuroscience laboratories, specialist data resources and the internationally renowned Aberdeen Children of the 1950s cohort, which has followed more than 5,000 individuals throughout their lives and provides an unparalleled opportunity to understand how lifelong social experiences influence wellbeing in older age.
Research funded through the project will examine new opportunities for connection alongside challenges to those with lower digital literacy as the world is rapidly reshaped by digital technology.
Professor Phillips added: “Population ageing means that more older adults than ever experience social disconnection, making this an urgent societal challenge. Despite this, there are major gaps in understanding about which aspects of social interaction are most important and how lifelong social patterns influence wellbeing in later life.
"This programme will enable us to develop a new generation of researchers who can transform our understanding of how social connections shape health and wellbeing in later life. By bringing together expertise from across disciplines, we can generate new knowledge that not only advances research but also informs policies and interventions that help older people remain socially connected and live healthier, more fulfilling lives."
The programme has been designed to bridge traditional disciplinary boundaries, combining expertise from social science, behavioural science and data science to address questions that cannot be answered within a single field. Each doctoral researcher will receive interdisciplinary supervision, tailored training and opportunities to work with community organisations, charities and policymakers to ensure research delivers real-world impact.
The Leverhulme Trust announced the awards as part of its centenary commitment to UK research. Professor Anna Vignoles, Director of the Leverhulme Trust, said: “Doctoral scholars are the bedrock of the academic system and these scholarships provide the opportunity for people to do something exciting at the beginning of their academic career. Our focus on interdisciplinarity enables students who are working on related topics to come together and look at an issue from different angles.”