Funding tool: 100 Years Lower Austria
Project-ID: 100J-004
Project start: 01. November 2023
Project end: 30. April 2025
Runtime: 18 months / ongoing
Funding amount: € 60.000,00

Brief summary:
Centenarians offer a unique and valuable insights into the social, cultural and political past and future development of Lower Austria. In 2022, 295 people in Lower Austria were older than 100 years and due to demographic change, this population is expected increase in the near future. These centenarians can be studied as prototypes for resilience and exceptional ageing and their perspectives are key to understanding longevity in the communities of Lower Austria in the past and the future. CLARA’s project goal is to examine the lives of centenarians in Lower Austria from a community perspective to understand centenarians' lived experiences of longevity in their local communities in Lower Austria, and their perspectives on the past, present and future developments of the local communities of Lower Austria. Based on a mixed method, multiple-perspective and participatory methodology, the project explores past and future perspectives on community development of Lower Austria with centenarians and co-develops locally based strategies to engage with centenarians as a resource for their future community development. CLARA approaches its research questions from a social-science and policy-oriented perspective, combining quantitative, qualitative and participatory social research with active stakeholder engagement through workshops and practical policy briefs. While multiple-perspective case studies in four communities of Lower Austria, which engage centenarians actively in research, will be at the center of the empirical WP, interdisciplinary workshops and stakeholder engagement will allow to draw broader conclusions on the engagement of the oldest old in community development in lower Austria. The analysis of quantitative, representative data and expert interviews will complement the project outcomes.

Keywords:
Gerontologie, Alterssoziologie, Langlebigkeit, Ageing-in-Place, Mixed-Methods, Aktives Altern,