Annual Reports
FY 2018 – 2019
This year included an active conference and workshop agenda, the publication of a number of papers, and the launch of the Center’s New Map of Life (NML) initiative. We continued to organize our work within three research divisions – Mind, Mobility and Financial Security – as we dove deeper into domains such as early childhood, education, environment, financial security, fitness, healthcare, intergenerational interactions and work. We worked closely with collaborators at Stanford and around the world, with the goal of making sure that research findings do not stay locked away in academia but instead reach the people who can most benefit from them. We continue to be sought after for expert input, and are regularly featured in leading media outlets.
FY 2017 – 2018
This year included talks by William F. Frey, author of “The Millennial Generation – A Demographic Bridge to America’s Diverse Future,” and Joseph Coughlin, author of “The Longevity Economy: Inside the World’s Fastest Growing, Most Misunderstood Market,” and Founding Director of the MIT AgeLab. With the Sightlines Project, we continued to tackle the goal of making the data accessible and relevant –beginning work on the first in-depth analysis report on Financial Security published in the Fall of 2018. We are pleased with the continued growing interest and engagement in our annual Design Challenge. This year’s challenge, “Promoting Lifelong Healthy Habits through Design” was chosen to designs to create and support healthy habits – including financial, physical, and social behaviors—which are shown to improve quality of life. We continue to see very strong geographic diversity with representation from 20 countries. The winner, ““Ride Rite” from Virginia Tech is a bicycle handlebar designed for older adults who have started to lose confidence in their ability to safely go on bike trips.
FY 2016 – 2017
This year we reach the decadal milestone for the Stanford Center on Longevity – ten years of work redesigning long life. As we plan for the future, the year also serves as an important moment to reflect on our accomplishments, recognize the productive working relationships we have with our faculty affiliates, industry leaders, policy makers, and supporters of the Center.
FY 2015 – 2016
Over the past decade, we have achieved highly productive working relationships within and outside the Stanford community with affiliated faculty, industry leaders, policy makers, and supporters of the Center. We foster dialogues and collaborations among these partners in order to develop workable solutions for urgent issues confronting the world as the population ages.
FY 2014 – 2015
The Stanford Center on Longevity’s ninth year included an active conference and workshop agenda, the publication of a number of papers, and the launch of the Center’s “SIGHTLINES” project. We continue to organize our work within three research divisions – Mind, Mobility and Financial Security because we believe that to the degree to which people reach old age mentally sharp, physically fit and financially secure, aging societies will thrive. We work closely with collaborators across the country and at Stanford, with the goal of making sure that research findings do not stay locked away in academia but instead reach the people who can most benefit from them. We continue to be sought after for expert input, and are regularly featured in leading media outlets.
FY 2013 – 2014
The mission of the Stanford Center on Longevity is to redesign long life. The Center studies the nature and development of the human life span, looking for innovative ways to use science and technology to solve the problems of people over 50 by improving the well-being of people of all ages.
FY 2012 – 2013
In less than one century, life expectancy has increased by an average of 30 years in developed regions of the world. Quite suddenly, there are more people living longer in the world than ever before in human history and they are accounting for an increasingly greater percentage of the world population. Improved longevity is, at once, among the most remarkable achievements in all of human history and one of our greatest challenges.
Learn more about how the Stanford Center on Longevity combines scientific and technological discoveries with swift entrepreneurial action to address the challenges of aging societies.
FY 2011 – 2012
During this fiscal year, with the generous help of Marsh & McLennan Companies, the Center initiated a new Center on Financial Security. With former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, the Center edited a book about aging in place, entitled Independent for Life: Homes and Communities for an Aging America (University of Texas Press). A new video about the Center’s work was developed and the Center hosted three visiting scholars; Professor Dana Goldman from USC, Science Editor Barbara Strauch from the New York Times, and Professor Jack Rowe from Columbia University. Professor Robert Lustig from UCSF Medical School was this year’s distinguished lecturer.
FY 2010 – 2011
In 2010 the first of the baby boomers turned 65, President Barack Obama turned 50 and the Center on Longevity completed its fifth year. The Center has created and nurtured a vibrant community of longevity scholars on campus. Research funded by the first round of the Center’s faculty seed grant programs was completed. Stanford undergraduates began to embark on research journeys related to longevity this year, creating engaging blogs on the Center’s website. Our re-designed website supported these and other initiatives.
A particularly exciting event this past year was the annual Roundtable at Stanford in October, which focused on the topic “Generation Ageless: Longevity and the Boomers, Consequences for Our World and Ourselves.” With a distinguished panel led by Tom Brokaw, we engaged the Stanford alumni and surrounding community in discussions on issues of longevity and the future. We also continued our distinguished lecture series with two stellar speakers – Barbara Strauch, science editor for the New York Times and author of The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brian and Marc Freedman, Founder and CEO of Civic Ventures and author of The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.
FY 2009 – 2010
With gifts from individual supporters, foundation grants and core operating support from Stanford, the Center on Longevity completed a very successful fourth year. The Center is creating a vibrant community of longevity scholars on campus. Senior academic staff members are working closely with faculty affiliates, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows to establish and fund research programs focused on solutions to challenges of long-lived individuals and aging societies. Importantly, Stanford undergraduates have gained a clear presence in the Center’s work as they pursue answers to questions that will help them navigate their own futures. We are building bridges outside of the university as well. Dr. John (Jack) Rowe, distinguished scientist and chair of the External Advisory Council for the Center, drew researchers, students and community members to a lecture entitled “Myths and Realities of an Aging Society,” and award-winning author, Stephen Hall, gave a thought-provoking lecture about “Wisdom.” We have been inspired by companies, like Steelcase, who are supporting our research efforts on sedentary behavior, and by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), who formed a partnership with the Center to stimulate research that helps to prevent financial fraud.
FY 2008 – 2009
We created the Stanford Center on Longevity not just to ask those questions and identify the most important challenges, but also to bring together experts who understand the facts, can create solutions and help our culture adapt. Research is our most potent tool. The Center’s work on health care is an example of our approach. The issue is complex, multi-faceted and touches every American at every stage of life. Our Health Security Project brought together experts whose findings foreshadowed some of the communications hurdles that nearly derailed health reform legislation. We are building on that project in 2010 as our nation’s attention turns – or should turn – to Medicare’s looming insolvency. As a special feature for this annual report, we asked center faculty affiliates for their perspectives on the prospects for resolving Medicare’s finances. Throughout the year, we will be calling on them and other Center affiliates to help our nation’s leaders make the best, most informed decisions. Longevity and the Center’s work go beyond health care. We seek innovative solutions to the problems of people over 50 and we strive to improve life for people of all ages – in areas ranging from health care to housing, mobility to financial security.
FY 2007 – 2008
In the two years since its founding, the SCL has established itself as a unique organization that pairs research with entrepreneurial action. The SCL takes advantage of Stanford’s unusually broad range of world-class research programs to take a comprehensive approach to longevity. We support basic research and training, as many university-based centers do, but we also are dedicated to using research to solve practical problems that face aging individuals and societies.
The theme that permeated the SCL’s second year was strategy. We challenged ourselves to identify ways in which we could maximally use our resources to address key challenges of aging while achieving the greatest possible impact. We do not want to be redundant to other successful efforts underway and we want to pursue problem areas in which we have considerable expertise. Following intensive self-study as well as assessing our unique strengths and matching them to pressing societal needs, we organized the SCL around three divisions and two programs. Divisions reflect our belief that to the extent that people arrive at old age physically fit, mentally sharp and financially secure, problems of aging fade away. In the Divisions, we target research and policy to address practical problems of aging. Programs reflect our belief that empirical analysis can and should inform private and public sector activities. Programs are aimed at speeding the adoption of best practices for aging societies.