Radical Rethink! – The Future of Aging Societies

Study Board of Market and Management Anthropology, Economics, Mathematics-Economics, Environmental and Resource Management

Teaching language: English
EKA: B500025102
Censorship: Second examiner: Internal
Grading: Pass/Fail
Offered in: Odense
Offered in: Autumn
Level: Master

Course ID: B500025101
ECTS value: 20

Date of Approval: 26-03-2019


Duration: 2 semesters

Course ID

B500025101

Course Title

Radical Rethink! – The Future of Aging Societies

Teaching language

English

ECTS value

20

Responsible study board

Study Board of Market and Management Anthropology, Economics, Mathematics-Economics, Environmental and Resource Management

Date of Approval

26-03-2019

Course Responsible

Name Email Department
Annette Baudisch baudisch@biology.sdu.dk

Offered in

Odense

Level

Master

Offered in

Autumn

Duration

2 semesters

Mandatory prerequisites

  • Fourth semester (2nd year) BA must be passed.
  • Participants must be enrolled as students at SDU and available for all program activities, especially also for the independent student projects, during the full length of the program.
  • Students must not have a delay in their studies at time of start of the program.

Recommended prerequisites

  • Admission to the program is competitive. Participants are enrolled individually by means of an application and selected by a selection committee
  • The program is offered in Odense but it is open for students from any SDU campus. Students following a degree program at another campus than Odense will be reimbursed for their travel and accommodation (at reasonable expenses) for mandatory activities.

Aim and purpose

The program provides a breeding ground for uncompromising, unconventional and novel interdisciplinary ideas. Connecting potential game-changers of the future from all SDU faculties and campuses into interdisciplinary talent teams, the program calls for radically rethinking life and life courses in our near-future societies that will be subject to population aging and longer life. Within this framework, students are challenged to identify a relevant societal problem and offer valuable ideas for solutions. Interdisciplinary talent teams are challenged to productively communicate, overcome disciplinary boundaries, and integrate different disciplinary approaches to create novel synergistic solutions. Solutions will compete at a final symposium for the attention and interest of external stakeholders. Individual students may choose the additional challenge to integrate their own views into a high-standard academic essay competing for submission to a peer-reviewed, international journal. The successfully completed program thereby offers participants a head-start within and outside of an academic career track. 

Content

A talent program aims to reach a higher level of learning than ordinary study programs. In this interdisciplinary program, students receive the unique opportunity to contribute and experience their competences as a constructive part of a larger whole within a talent team shaped by the cultures of diverse disciplines united by new common knowledge on problems and opportunities arising in aging societies. Emphasis is on cross-disciplinary understanding, integration and application of mono-disciplinary knowledge, skills and competences in a solution-oriented context of societal relevance.

Learning goals

Overall, the objective of the talent program is for students to acquire and demonstrate:
  • Knowledge about: causes and consequence of population aging, its associated societal and individual challenges and opportunities, and need for future adjustment
  • Skills to: identify relevant problems arising in aging societies and suggest valuable solutions enabled by trans-disciplinary teams with a focus to radically rethinking status quo
  • Competences to: combine knowledge and ideas from own disciplinary background with other students’ disciplinary knowledge to productively form an interdisciplinary synergistic solution of real life problems within the program’s theme
In particular, during the talent program, the student is expected to acquire: 

Description of outcome - Knowledge

  • Causes and consequences of population aging
  • Mechanisms of population aging and their development over space and time
  • Associated societal and individual challenges and opportunities
  • Current actions taken to tackle/take advantage of challenges and opportunities
  • Different disciplines’ perspectives on population aging
  • Major interdisciplinary themes of aging societies (see “focus and topics”)
  • High scientific research standards
  • Interdisciplinary team work

Description of outcome - Skills

  • Venture into unknown territory
  • Critically evaluate and radically rethink status quo on current actions taken to tackle/take advantage of challenges and opportunities of population aging
  • Communicate across disciplinary boundaries
  • Function constructively/enact own profession within an interdisciplinary team
  • Listen to and openly consider alternative/divergent approaches and perspectives
  • Reflect on processes of team work, self-contribution and self-development
  • Self-organize within student project teams
  • Develop solution-oriented “action plan”
  • Independently set goals, maintain progress and hold deadlines
  • Communicate on high academic level individually, within teams, in plenum and publicly, orally and in writing

Description of outcome - Competences

  • Understand, digest and apply knowledge outside the comfort zone of own educational background and discipline
  • View challenges and opportunities arising due to population aging from an interdisciplinary angle
  • Connect own skills and talent with other skills and talents within cross-disciplinary teams towards achieving a common goal.
  • Identify relevant societal problems from an interdisciplinary team perspective
  • Suggest valuable real life solutions that synergistically integrate methods, approaches, perspectives from diverse disciplines
  • Formulate, develop and finish an independent team project on population aging
  • Develop own research questions and methods with firm grounding in relevant literature and competences developed in the students’ main discipline

Literature

Examples

NAT
  • Colchero et al. (2016) The Emergence of Longevous Populations. PNAS, E7681-E7690.
  • Baudisch (2015) Perspectives on the Biodemography of longevity and aging. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 67, 425-439.
  • Jones et al. (2014) Diversity of aging across the tree of life. Nature 505:169–173.
  • Baudisch, & Vaupel ( 2012) Getting to the root of aging. Science 338:618–619.
  • Burger, Baudisch & Vaupel (2012) Human mortality improvement in evolutionary context. PNAS 109:18210–18214.
  • Baudisch (2011) The pace and shape of ageing. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 2, 375-382.
  • Mair et al. (2003) Demography of Dietary Restriction and Death in Drosophila. Science 301, 1731-1733.
  • Oeppen & Vaupel. (2002) Demography. Broken limits to life expectancy. Science 296:1029–1031.
SAMF
  • Brynjolfsson, E. & McAfee, A. (2014), The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York, NY: W. W. Norton
  • Frey, C.B. & Osborne, M.A. (2013). The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? Oxford: Oxford Martin School.
  • Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2015), ‘Will Humans Go the Way of Horses?’ Foreign Affairs, 94(4), 8-14.
  • Keynes, J.M. (1930), ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,’ in Keynes, J.M. Essays in Persuasion, New York: W.W.Norton & Co.,, pp. 358-373.
  • Gál, R. I., Vanhuysse, P., Vargha, L. (2018), Pro-Elderly Welfare States within Child-Oriented Societies,’ forthcoming, Journal of European Public Policy.
  • Vanhuysse, P. (2013), Intergenerational Justice in Aging Societies: A Cross-National Comparison of 29 OECD Countries. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation.
SUND 
  • Christensen et al. (2009). Ageing populations: the challenges ahead. Lancet
  • Vaupel (2010). Biodemography of human ageing. Nature 374:1196-1208.
  • Christensen et al. (2013). Physical and cognitive functioning of people older than 90 years. Lancet 382:1507-1513.
  • Jeune et al. (2015). Improvement in health expectancy at age 50 and 65 in Denmark during the period 2004-2011. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 43:254-259.
  • Rasmussen et al. (2017). Cohort Profile: the 1895, 1905, 1910, and 1915 Danish Birth Cohorts Studies – Secular trends in health and functioning of the very old. International Journal Epidemiology 46:1746-1746j. 
HUM
  • Cole, Thomas et al (eds). (2000). Handbook of the Humanities and Ageing. Second Edition
  • Woodward, Kathleen. (1991). Aging and Its Discontents: Freud and Other Fictions
  • Chivers, Sally. (2011). The Silvering Screen: Old Age and Disability in Film
  • Twigg, Julia (ed.). (2015). The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology
  • Simonsen, Peter (2014). Livslange liv: Plejehjemsromaner og pensionsfortællinger fra velfærdsstaten
TEK
  • G. Demiris, B. K. Hensel: Technologies for an Aging Society: A Systematic Review of "Smart Home" Applications. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2008. Methods Inf Med 2008; 47 Suppl 1: 33-40
  • Inmaculada Plaza Lourdes Martín, SergioMartin, Carlos Medrano: Mobile applications in an aging society: Status and trends. Journal of Systems and Software Volume 84, Issue 11, November 2011, Pages 1977-1988
  • Kimitoshi Yamazaki, Ryohei Ueda, Shunichi Nozawa, Mitsuharu Kojima, Kei Okada, Kiyoshi Matsumoto, Masaru Ishikaw: Home-Assistant Robot for an Aging Society, Proceedings of the IEEE Volume: 100 Issue: 8.
  • Mansourvar, M., Andersen-Ranberg K., Nøhr, C & Wiil, U. K. A Predictive Model for Acute Admission in Aged Population 2018 (In press) Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. IOS Press
Movie List:
  • Citizen Kane (1941) by Orson Wells – playing himself the great man Kane. The movie starts with the dying Kane’s last word: “Rosebud”. 
  • King Lear (1953) directed by Peter Brook with Orson Wells as King Lear, (1971) directed by Peter Brook with Paul Scofield, (1994) by the Renaissance Theater Company with Sir John Gielgud, (2008) by Stephen Armourar, (2018) by Trevor Nunn.   
  • The Old Man and the Sea (1958) based on the novel by Hemmingway, directed by John Sturges and Fred Zinnemann and with Spencer Tracey as the old man, (1990) directed by John Taylor and with Anthony Quinn as the old man.
  • The Leopard (1963) based on Lampedusa’s novel, directed by Visconti, with Burt Lancaster as the old count “The Leopard”, and with Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, “change to maintain”.
  • Death in Venice (1971) based on Thomas Mann’s novel, directed by Visconti, with Dirk Bogarde as the old componist Gustav van Aschenbach and Bjørn Andresen as the young Tadzio
  • Ginger & Fred (1985) by Fellini with Marcello Mastroiani and Giuletta Masima
  • The remains of the day (1993) based on Kazyo Ishiguro’s novel, by James Ivory, with Emma Thomson and Antony Hopkins: A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years leading up to World War II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty was to his lordly employer.
  • Grumpy old men (1993) manuscript by Mark Steven Johnson and directed by Donald Petrie, with Jack Lemmon and Walther Matthau “like a couple of old shoes”.
  • The Straight Story (1999) based on the true story of the old man Alwin Straight’s 1994 long journey across Iowa and Wisconsin by lawnmower to mend his relationship with an ill brother, by David Lynch, and with Richard Farnsworth as Alwin Straight.
  • The world’s fastest Indian (2005) written and directed by Roger Donaldson, with Antony Hopkins as Munro: The story of New Zealander speed bike racer Burt Munro, who spent years rebuilding a 1920 Indian motorcycle, which helped him set the land speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.
  • Children of men (2006) based on P.D. James’ novel, by Alfonso Cuarón with Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michal Cain: In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.
  • The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) based on Deborah Maggosh’s novel “These foolish things” (2004), by John Madden, with Judy Dench: British retirees travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than advertised, the Marigold Hotel nevertheless slowly begins to charm in unexpected ways.
  • Elysium (2013) written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, with Matt Damon and Jody Foster: In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth. A man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.
  • Amour (2012) by Michael Haneke with Emanuelle Riva as the demented old wife and Jean Louis Trintignant as her husband
  • En sang for Martin (2011) by Billy August – a love story about two older musicians, Martin and Barbara. Martin get Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Our Souls at Night (2017) based on the novel by Kent Haruf, directed by Ritesh Batra, and with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford.
  • Lucky (2017) by John Caroll Lynch with Harry Dean Stanton and David Lynch as a 90 year old atheist.
  • Vores livs ferie (2018) by Paolo Virzi with Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. An 80-year old couple, him with Alzheimer, she terminally ill … a trip for life. (original title The leisure seeker)

Teaching Method

Bridging languages
For educating students with diverse backgrounds from the humanities, the social, the natural sciences and technology, it is a major challenge to find a common language. To ensure that students from each discipline can benefit from the course together, we will tackle this challenge along three lines. First, understanding and communication will rely on multi-disciplinary student teams that will function as “talent supports talent”. Second, instructors will offer teaching material according to the diverse audience, and third, the program will use movies as facilitator to bridge disparate disciplinary “languages” and communicate complex and multifaceted societal and individual issues of aging.

Learning activities
Learning activities will fall into four categories: 1) lecture series, 2) team-based learning, 3) expert round tables, and 4) movie series. 

First, the lecture series provides basic knowledge and common ground along the themes outlined under “focus and topics”. 

Second, team-based learning offers students the necessary training and experience of interdisciplinary team work. Besides obvious topical work (see “focus and topics”), the program will also emphasize meta-level reflections on students’ roles and specific talent contributions within interdisciplinary teams. During the initial bootcamp, student team composition will vary to create different experiences depending on what talents and disciplines are combined and provide an opportunity to get to know each other and to facilitate best possible team combinations for student projects, see below.

Third, expert round tables will provide the stage to present output, receive feedback, and foster discussion.

Fourth, movie sessions that provide distinct visions of societal futures will end each day. Plenum discussions will follow each movie facilitated by instructors and/or experts from at least two different faculties to ensure a rounded perspective. The Appendix lists potential movies.

The constant exchange between students about the multifaceted character of aging during activities described above provides the basis to form ideas for student projects. Depending on the nature of the project, two or more students from different faculties will work together. 

Student Projects
Multidisciplinary student teams will be formed at the end of the bootcamp. Teams will work on projects based on the passion students have developed for problems they themselves have identified and formulated during the camp. Each team will receive a team mentor who will take on the role of a passive facilitator. Participants are encouraged to be, as much as possible, self-driven in their learning process, requesting knowledge and support on demand from the team mentors, program organizers as well as external partners. Student teams need to be self-organized and encourage mutual participation, effort and engagement. During the program year, teams are free to organize their work according to team member’s preferences.

Mentoring
Each student will receive an individual mentoring session in the beginning of the program to discuss personal goals, talent field, expectations and challenges. Mentoring will continue to supervise student learning teams (see point 2 above). Towards the end of the program, individual mentoring sessions will evaluate progress on initially set goals, expectations and challenges. It will reflect upon personal talent development and look into future opportunities.

Final Symposium
The programme will end with a final symposium. At this symposium the students will present their projects, outcomes and experiences. The symposium functions as oral exam and as a stage to become visible for external stakeholders. For the best student projects, the program awards a trip to and presentation at an international scientific conference (Nordic Gerontological conference in May or Dansk Gerontologisk Selskabs Nationale Konference in November). 

Stakeholder challenge
SDU Stakeholders will participate in the symposium, who expressed high interest in identifying and rewarding talent and great ideas. 

Scientific Challenge
Students may choose to write an individual essay at high scientific standards for an extra 10 ECTS. Top graded essays will be submitted to an international, peer-reviewed journal. This option is particularly addressed to students who strive for a head start in an academic career by an early publication within a potential PhD work.

Workload

Scheduled classes
With due regard to the ordinary and diverse study program of participants, classes are scheduled during concentrated times in form of 1) an intense full-week boot camp in week 35 of August and 2) five weekends, three in fall, and two in the beginning of Spring.

Bootcamp and weekends will offer full catering, and attendance is expected throughout the days to ensure team-building, creative exchange and idea flow during the breaks.

Student preparation, reading and work is expected to be intense during the time between weekends. Throughout the whole year, project teams are expected to develop their ideas, connect to relevant stakeholders in the community, collect data, and carry out any other relevant actions necessary to complete their project. Most of the spring term is reserved to carry out and finalize student projects. 

Time schedule
Bootcamp
Begins Sunday late afternoon and ends Friday afternoon. 
Week 35: 25.-30. August 

Weekends
Typically run from Friday afternoon until late Saturday afternoon. Preliminary dates:
1.Week 40: 04/05 October 
2.Week 44: 01/02 November
3.Week 48:29/30 November
4.Week 5: 31/01 Jan/Feb 
5.Week 9: 28/29 February

Final symposium
June 2020

Workload
Expected student effort (in hours):
Attendance: 170
Preparation and reading 
 before bootcamp:   20
 between weekends:   80
Team project development: 262
Exam day:     8
Total: 540

Examination regulations

Exam

Name

Exam

Timing

Oral presentation: June, during a symposium

Tests

Oral presentation

Name

Oral presentation

Form of examination

Oral examination

Censorship

Second examiner: Internal

Grading

Pass/Fail

Identification

Student Identification Card - Date of birth

Language

English

Duration

Depending on group size and topic, each student should receive at least 5 minutes presentation time. Total project presentation is expected to take about 30 min with additional 15 to 20 min time for questions. 

ECTS value

20

Additional information

Oral student project presentations function as group exams. Contributions of each student have to be made explicit. 

Assessment of 20ECTS: Oral student project presentations at final symposium judged by the scientific board (at least two members have to be present). 

Examiners of projects and essays will evaluate the relevance of the problem, the added-value of the solution, its novelty, its creativity, the integration of different disciplines, the amount of team-synergy created compared to individual, monodisciplinary approaches, scientific and methodological correctness, and writing and presentation skills.

Different to other courses, taking the final exam is not enough to pass this course; active attendance at all boot camps is compulsory; substantial contribution to and active participation in the independent team project between the boot camps over the full year is the most important necessity for passing and receiving the honours degree.   

EKA

B500025102

External comment

To receive an Honours Degree upon completion, the completion needs to be done within the standard study period. Initial commitment to attendance of the entire boot-camp, all five weekends, active participation in student team projects and the final symposium is mandatory.

Exceptional circumstances may lead to absence, but must not be expected to reduce participation below 85%. Absence has to be reported to and accepted by the scientific board.

By the very idea of this program, each individual student’s contribution counts substantially. Student team participation will be actively encouraged by the student team and facilitated by the team mentor. Active student team members are needed to assure the success of the whole team and thereby the entire program.

In case of sickness, the scientific board has to be informed and will decide, case by case and together with the affected student team, whether measures can be taken to sufficiently compensate for the resulting lack of attendance.

The focus and topics
Population aging results from long-lasting imbalanced birth and death rates that prevent population rejuvenation. Over the past few decades, this process has led to longer-living and often larger-sized generations of elderly citizens and smaller-sized generations of young citizens for the first time in history.

Population aging is both a risk and an opportunity. It is also a near-certainty in high and middle income countries, and hence of highest societal relevance. This affects all aspects of society, including artistic, biological, cultural, economic, ethical, medical, political, psychological, and technological factors. Real-life solutions and actions that adequately address ever-more complex and multi-facetted questions need to utilize the full synergistic potential of interdisciplinary talent teams.

The program will focus on causes and consequences of aging for society and for the individual. It will interpret, critically reflect upon and explore the meaning of challenges posed and opportunities held by population aging and increasing longevity; it will radically rethink aging societies and translate gained insights into ideas for potential future actions.
 
Focal topics of the program will revolve around themes that cover major questions and societal challenges and opportunities as listed below. Themes (1-3) mainly cover causes of aging for society and for the individual, and themes (4-6,7) cover consequences. Themes illustrate the menu from which the program will be shaped. Not all themes will be treated in equal depth.
 
Focus with respect to causes: Basic mechanisms that drive population aging; past, present and future trends of aging; determinants of health and aging.

Focus with respect to consequences and actions: What challenges arise; what opportunities emerge; what can we do? 

Contribution and focus from each faculty: The program will maintain a wide, integrative and interdisciplinary perspective: CPop (an inter-faculty demography unit) provides expertise on population sciences and associated methodologies; SUND represents the pillar of human health and recovery; HUM reflects changes in key aspects of human life - individual and social - through the lenses of literature, art and the media; NAT teaches lessons from nature with an evolutionary perspective; SAMF enlightens the contradicting pushes and pulls of economic demands, public drivers and individual needs; and TEK unravels the blessings and curses of technology innovations. 

1. “Aging societies, where did we come from, where are we going.

2.Trends: Living longer, living healthier?

3.Determinants: What are the secrets of aging?

4.Families of the future – aging across generations?

5.Are we heading towards a sustainable future society?

6.Back to the Future? ( all faculties)

7.Radically Rethinking Future Society – Student Projects

Scientific Board (with representative faculty):
Annette Baudisch (CPop/NAT)
Paolo Caserotti (HEALTH)
Pieter Vanhuysse (SAMF)
Christian Nøhr (TEK)
Peter Simonsen (HUM)

Courses offered

Offer period Offer type Profile Education Semester