Purpose and Content of the Conference

All European Societies are ageing. Dramatic demographic changes are resulting from a declining fertility rate and rising expectancy of life. This development causes many problems, as increasing shares of the population no longer actively participate in the economically productive branches of social life. Policy responses to this dilemma have been to reduce access to early retirement programmes and to introduce new pension schemes based on later exit options (e.g. "pension with 67" in Germany).

In order to support older adults to succed in the labour market, further education and life-long learning are of crucial importance. They furthermore foster innovation and enhance exchange and communication between different generations. Providing educational resources independent of age is of vital essence for active social participation, but also for a healthy and happy lifestyle of older people after work and in post-family phases of their lives.

This conference aims at facilitating a discussion about these issues between researchers and citizens in an atmosphere of joint learning with research approaches towards using the intellectual potential of older people in shaping the future being of core interest.

The conference opens with plenary lectures from the social and educational sciences. These introduce themes of discussion to take place on the second day in the in the framework of 5 workshops. The results of the discussion within the workshops will lay the ground for a script of ideas of how to deal with these issues called "Hamburg Perspectives".

Specific topics addressed will be the following:

Topics from Sociology and Political Science:

What are major developments in European societies based on wage labour caused by demographic change and globalisation? How do such developments affect later life phases of the individual? The traditional understanding of "retirement" is assumed to have lost its validity. "Patchwork-biographies" and extension of labour activities into advanced age have made groups with interruptions of waged labour by unemployment phases and changes in job requirements become the norm.

How do European labour, social, and family policies deal with seniority and how are the challengeds above incorporated into pension schemes and reform efforts in those policy fields?

Topics from Educational Science:

Different meanings and differing frameworks of life-long learning in Europe and demographic change: Adult education versus self fulfilment for seniors: Does the information society need further education in and by universities?
Financing life-long learning for older adults
intergenerative learning
Development of key competencies through and for older people
Learning how to age
Concepts of adult education for learning in active ageing environments
Innovations in adult education

Topics of support for Self-Organisation of Senior Students in Life-long Learning, Teaching, and Research Activities:

Exchange about self-organised learning, teaching, and research
Self-organised projects by and for older students
How can groups, which organise learning, cooperate with universities?
What is the role of retired professors?
How do older students learn in partner cities of Hamburg such as Prague, Marseille, and Dresden as well as in all the other places, where EFOS - European Federation of Older Students - is represented?

A Public Evening Lecture will be held together with a panel discussion including representatives from the cities of Hamburg and Dresden and the Hamburg "Network for Education in Old Age".

Everybody, interested citizens, politicians, scholars as well as actors of elderly education are invited to participate actively in the conference.

We also invite you to present posters on the topics of the conference. If you wish to present your scientific work, your project or a student paper, then please don't hesitate to contact us.

For your participation please follow the links in the left menu "Registration/Enrolment" and register for this conference. Please also register for workshops and whether you are going to take part in the Public Evening Session. In the same manner you can sign in for presenting a poster.

A follow-up conference is planned in May 2010 to take place in Hamburg's Partner-city Dresden, dealing with lifelong learning, education for pensioners, and healthy ageing.