Older women are doubly socially excluded, not only because they are more at risk of poverty, loneliness and disability than men, but also because the gender issue is not recognised in research and in the provision of services; little is done to deal with the specific issues that produce differences between genders. An important objective of OWN initiatives should be liaising with researchers and therefore promoting research on older women's issues.

The reciprocal differences in agendas, priorities and fields of action between researchers and grassroots and political organisation should be recognised and maintained. By this, I mean that political decision is not, and should not be, a consequence of researchers decisions or findings, but it must be recognised that in order to promote initiative at a political level, it is crucial to have relevant data, significant documentation on specific issues.

Research has been identified as a key issue for the OWN conference in October; a priority of the workshop should be the identification of strategies for liaising with researchers and of concrete ways of realising them. Moreover, the workshop will also identify resolutions in relation to research to be sent to the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission. The resolutions should indicate concrete actions EC should take in order to produce the visibility of the feminisation of ageing and promote qualitative research that can highlight the cultural particulars of gender differences in relation to health, poverty, living arrangements etc., in order to promote effective actions at the level of policy implementation and services provision.

Small steps in liaising with researchers have been taken by OWN:

• Ireland case study: Setting up OWN Ireland

• Italy research: The role of women in the care of older disabled family members

• The mailing list RESNET (Researchers working on older women's issues)

RESNET (Researchers working on older women's issues) is a mailing list, established in 1996 with OWN support; through the list I have been disseminating information about conferences, funding opportunities, references on older women's issues. Although the initiative is minimal, self-funded and voluntary, it has been effective in incrementing the visibility of older women’s issues and supporting researchers working on older women's issues, through the provision of relevant information and facilitating the organisation of international meetings.

Below the relevant information to join the list.

To subscribe to RESNET:
address: listproc@krenet.it
message: subscribe resnet name surname

To send a message to RESNET:
address: resnet@krenet.it