31 January, 2025

Europe’s population is getting older at a faster rate than ever before, which means the proportion of people of working age is shrinking and the number of retirees is increasing.  Such changes are likely to have profound implications for governments, the economy, and civil society impacting health, business, care, employment, pensions, infrastructure etc.  

Part of our work at the Hincks Centre is to engage in research for impact, where our knowledge and evidence-based insights adds value to policy, the economy and society. This week Helen McGuirk was invited as an external expert on the senior (silver) economy, to participate in an internal workshop hosted by the DG Research and Innovation team at their offices in Brussels. 

As a starting point, the workshop heard from Lead partners of eight co-funded projects under Clusters 1 & 2 of the EU’s Horizon programme on how their research will contribute to Europe’s demographic transition.  This was followed by in-depth discussions on the senior (sometimes referred to as the silver or longevity) economy from a broad perspective and considering the recent policy documents such as the Draghi Report (2024), the Letta Report (2024) as well as the EU’s Green Paper on Ageing (2021) and the WHO’s Decade for Healthy Ageing (2021).  

For more information on the research by the Hincks Team on the Silver/Senior Economy click on the following links or contact Helen.

• SilverSMEs
• Senior Eco-Nect

Dr. Helen McGuirk  

Head, Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence, 

School of Business,