Feedback on the Team Achievement nominations to the 2025/26 Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards
Read our general feedback on on the Team Achievement nominations to the 2025/26 Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards.
Academy
Boosting learning and leadership within community-led organisations
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.
How the Academy is supporting nurses, allied health professionals and care home staff in research
Here are a few of the ways in which the Academy is providing support to encourage nurses, allied health professionals and care home staff into research.
Seeing research from both sides: insights from our Research Grants Committee
We spoke with Mariana Borsa, recently appointed Assistant Professor and group leader at the University of Basel, and Stuart Gray, Professor of Muscle and Metabolic Health at the University of Glasgow, about what it’s like to sit on our Research Grants Committee.
Feedback on the fifth round of applications for the Academy Ignition Fund
Following our fifth round of Ignition Fund awards we have provided general feedback for those who were unsuccessful.
Using Ignition funding for international collaboration
Dr David Henderson is a Quantitative Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Here he explains how he used his Ignition Fund award to undertake a three-week visit to the Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Stockholm in September 2025.
Using Ignition funding for a travel fellowship to Australasia
Dr Grace Pearson is a Clinical Lecturer in Ageing Education at the University of Bristol Medical School and a Specialty Doctor in Geriatric Medicine at the Royal United Hospital, Bath. She was recently awarded Ignition funding to undertake a travel fellowship to Australia and New Zealand.
Nick Evans reflects on 10 years of the ECR network/Vivensa Academy
As we are fast-approaching the 10-year anniversary of the creation of the ECR network, Nick Evans reflects on some of the ways in which Vivensa Academy is benefitting its members.
Using Ignition funding to better understand the role of immune cells in muscle ageing
Dr Mark Ross was among our first Ignition Fund awardees in 2024 and used the funding to undertake a secondment to the University of Birmingham to learn how to isolate immune cells from muscle tissue.
New resources to support Structured Medication Reviews in care homes
A suite of new resources to help care home residents, their families and staff to prepare for and participate in Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs).
Now open for nominations: 2025/26 Vivensa Foundation Academy Excellence Awards
The third round of the Academy Excellence Awards are now open, with a deadline for nominations of 31st October 2025.
Using an Ignition Fund award to co-chair a Special Interest Group on ageing and autism
Aphrodite Eshetu from UCL describes co-chairing a Special Interest Group (SIG) session focused on ageism and autism.