The ARK team will be taking a break over the next two weeks, and returning on 4th January. In the meantime, we hope that you all have a very happy, safe and peaceful Christmas season.  

On 14 December, the ARK Ageing Programme and the Science and Culture Research Group at Queen's University Belfast hosted Framing Ageing's first Early Career Researcher (ECR) symposium.

A blog by Gemma Carney, who facilitated this international symposium, looks back at this event, and discusses how research on ageing has evolved into a vibrant, multi-disciplinary field that aims to support our ageing population.

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The CAIN website contains a wealth of information relating to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

491 government files from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) have recently been have been added to PRONI Records on CAIN section. These files date from 1997 and 1998, and record political negotiations that led up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

This is the 12th addition/update from the annual release of previously restricted files.

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Three ARK colleagues - Alexandra Chapman, Ann Marie Gray and Goretti Horgan - were part of a team from Ulster University who submitted written evidence to the Cost of Living in Northern Ireland non-inquiry session of the Northern Ireland Committee at Westminster. Other authors were Ciara Fitzpatrick, Grainne McKeever and Mark Simpson.

Using evidence from a range of sources, including ARK's Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, this briefing paper had three key messages: an urgent need to implement the Northern Ireland social security reforms; critical investment in social infrastructure; and financial stability for services and organisations that help people manage and mitigate the impacts of poverty.

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ARK is Northern Ireland's social policy hub. Established in 2000 by researchers at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, its primary goal is to increase the accessibility and use of academic data and research. Most of our dissemination is via our website at www.ark.ac.uk, which is divided into five main areas:

• Surveys
• Projects
• Resources
• Publications
• Events

Find out more