Launching an interdisciplinary “International Summer School on Ageing” (ISSA): Aims, methodology, and outcomes

ABSTRACT: Despite the increasing availability of gerontological training programs, knowledge of their contents, characteristics, methods, and outcomes remains limited. However, the transition from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinary orientations is now fundamental to such training, providing participants from diverse academic orientations and professional backgrounds with opportunities to interact across boundaries. In response to recommendations of the European Union Futurage A road map for European ageing research (FUTURAGE, 2011) concerning training and career-development needs of future cohorts of practitioners and scholars in aging, an International Summer School on Ageing (ISSA) was developed in 2012. Its aim was to initiate the practical implementation of some of the capacity building goals identified by Futurage. The design and structure of the ISSA was informed by the experience of Canada’s Summer Programme in Ageing—run by the Institute of Aging of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research—and by the cross-border academic training activities organized by Lund University (Sweden) in Scandinavian countries. As Italy has lacked a tradition of comprehensive, interdisciplinary training programs in gerontology, the Italian National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing undertook to launch the inaugural ISSA. In this article, the core aims and methodology of the ISSA are presented, together with an analysis of its main outcomes, as measured by participant evaluations. These are discussed in the context of international debate on this topic.