HOMeAGE is a new, nine country, Marie Skłodowska Curie (MSCA) Doctoral Network Programme on Advancing Research and Training on Ageing, Place and Home which is funded by the European Commission. HOMeAGE seeks to recruit 12 Doctoral Researchers (DRs) on a full-time basis over three years starting in September 2023. The Doctoral Researchers will be hosted by one of the following beneficiary organizations in the HOMeAGE network, and will be supported by associated partner organizations. HOMeAGE beneficiaries and partners represent the key intersectoral actors in the field, comprising: leading research units; major intergovernmental organisations; international civil society actors; governmental and non-governmental organisations; public advisory agencies and innovation bodies. HOMeAGE delivers a unique employability and skills development process for DRs ensuring that they can lead the response to current research and policy deficits.​

"Seniors in Crises" is the short title of the project "Methodology of the IZS for the consequences of demographic changes in the context of ensuring health and safety in emergency situations and small, medium and large-scale crisis interventions". In this project, CERA focuses on sharing good practices from abroad with the aim of ultimately strengthening the protection of health and quality of life of the older adults in unstable environments, e.g. due to climate change (heat waves; floods; tornadoes; epidemiological crises, etc.). SYRI is a virtual scientific hub that brings together experts from Masaryk University, Charles University and institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. CERA is the investigator of the sub-project of research group 6 "Health System Effectiveness". More about the project in the press release.

The project develops the new field of climate gerontology and aims to describe older Czechs´ (65+) values, attitudes and behaviour relevant within the climate change and environmental crisis context. It also seeks to gain deeper understanding of motivations, attitudes and practices of “green” older people (those declaring explicitly pro-environmental values and being actively engaged in various forms of eco-activism and civic participation), and to explore and interpret perceived impacts of climate change to older people in urban and rural settings in significantly climatically changing areas including their coping strategies (if present) in relation to their residential biographies, place attachment and place outlook.

The project looks into dialectic relationship between ageing/old age and the space/environment. It engages the mixed methods approach (secondary analysis, representative survey, and qualitative in-depth interviews) to describe the heterogeneity characteristics of older rural inhabitants in the Czech Republic and to provide the international comparison. Furthermore it identifies the major challenges and advantages that older people face in various types of rural environments by identifying sources of social/environmental exclusion and features of ageing well, respectively. It looks into well being and quality of life in later age employing and reviewing concepts such as active ageing and age friendliness with respect to the specific rural context. The comparison with previously published results on ageing in the cities will be provided. The results will be published in a comprehensive volume and several academic articles.

The project builds on principles of environmental gerontology and it aims to uncover new insights into the relationships between ageing and space/environment. We explore the impact that changes in the lived environment and space have on the perceived well being of the elderly, on the (perception of) risk of their social exclusion, and on the concept of successful ageing in general. We use the concept of gentrification as a prism for critically thinking about the mutual overlapping of various age groupsand their habitus in certain locality. We use a multiple research design: case studies on revitalised localities which we describe as life spaces of/for seniors; focus groups conducted with residents of these localities aged 65+; further we conduct in-depth interviews with seniors-residents and finally we carry out a representative survey of Czech urban population aged 65+ by which we further explore more general issues of the lived environment/space and experiences of ageing.