Professor Robert Wright (Economics) and Professor David Bell (University of Stirling) have received a £320K grant from the Nuffield Foundation.
The grant will be used to fund empirical research into the relationship between financial literacy and cognition amongst older people as part of the Healthy Ageing in Scotland (HAGIS) project.
Professor Wright recently organised the British and Irish Longitudinal Studies of Ageing (BILS) annual conference on November 20-21 at Strathclyde which brought together critical research studies and provided a platform for Healthy Ageing in Scotland (HAGIS) – the country's first longitudinal study of ageing.
The conference was opened by Mr Alex Neil, MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, who gave his last address as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-being at the conference. His new role is Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners' Rights.
Professor Wright said, "Scotland has the highest mortality and lowest life expectancy in the UK and it is critically important that we gain a better understanding of the ageing process.
"Longitudinal studies of ageing will play a critical role in helping us plan for the future, helping us harness the talents and experience of older people while ensuring they have access to the support they need.
"Unfortunately, Scotland still lags behind the rest of the UK and Ireland in the development of such an important resource but the HAGIS project is a positive step forward and we hope will be central to the design of effective policy."
The long term aim of the HAGIS project is to interview 10,000 people in Scotland every two years for a decade. Detailed medical, economic and social data will be collected through face-to-face surveying and the internet. The study will provide unparalleled information about individual and population ageing.