Dr Claire McDonald is one of two recipients of our 2026 Rising Star Vivensa Academy Excellence Award, alongside Dr Mahmoud Bukar Maina. We speak to her about combining clinical medicine with research, why older people with multiple long‑term conditions shouldn’t be excluded from trials, and how she plans to use her award to build a more inclusive, cross‑disciplinary research ecosystem for ageing.
Professor Nathan Davies is the recipient of our 2026 Senior Leader Vivensa Academy Excellence Award. We spoke to him about leadership rooted in personal values, his plans to build research capacity and his commitment to creating lasting change in the field of ageing research.
We talk to Dr Mahmoud Maina – our 2026 Rising Star in the Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards – about his research spanning two continents.
We talk to the winners of the new ‘Team Achievement’ category in our annual Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards – the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group (MUARG). Here, members share their approach to co-production, plans for their 10th anniversary celebration and their hopes for the future of the research group.
We are delighted to share the news that Vivensa Foundation is sponsoring Dr Helen Nuttall and Dr Kate Slade’s ‘Drs Confess’ podcast for the next year.
Schenelle Dlima (University of Manchester) offers a view about navigating the final stretch of a PhD – what it takes to finish, and what comes next.
Last week (5/2/26) our CEO Katy Saunders and Senior Grants Manager Oliver Soutar were invited to the House of Lords for a special event hosted by Lord Best. It was the launch of the research report ‘Amar bari, amar jibon (My home, my life): Developing suitable living environments for Bangladeshi elders.’
When Sandra Dyer started her PhD at King’s College London’s Cicely Saunders Institute in February 2025, it marked the end of a years-long journey – one that included two fellowship applications, job changes, and moments of questioning whether research was “for nurses like me.” But here’s what she learned: the path into research isn’t always linear, and for any emerging researchers, resilience and a strong support network make all the difference.
Back in August 2025 we announced that we were funding five places for Vivensa Academy members to join Zinc’s Inflection Programme. As the 12-week interdisciplinary programme has just finished, we spoke with the five Academy members we funded.
For the past six years, the Vivensa Foundation and RNID have worked together to support early career researchers (ECRs) tackling one of the most underfunded areas in ageing-related research: hearing loss.
At the Vivensa Foundation, we believe in funding people as well as projects. That’s why we started the Capability Development Programme – to give community-led organisations working with older people the tools they need to succeed: practical learning, leadership development, strategic thinking time and a £15k grant to put their ideas into action.
Funded by the Vivensa Foundation, the Capability Development Programme provides expert learning, peer support, and practical grants to community-led organisations — giving leaders the confidence and tools they need to move forward.