One exciting part of the ARK Ageing Programme is our Visiting Fellow Scheme. This Scheme allows us to invite experts to either Queen's University Belfast or University of Ulster for a two-week visiting fellowship, with the aim of sharing their insights and experience.
We are very pleased that our first Visiting Fellow is Nancy Henkin, who is founder and Executive Director of the Intergenerational Center, Temple University, Philadelphia. Nancy is based at Queen's University from 30 September to 13 October, and has been involved in a wide variety of events and meetings. Two key events are:

• 'Beyond the Silos: An 'all-age' approach to strengthening communities' (Joint workshop with INCORE, University of Ulster), Holywell DiverseCity, Derry-Londonderry
• Collaborating towards an age-friendly Northern Ireland (Joint workshop with Linking Generations), Belfast City Hall

Further information, including videos, photographs and presentation slides are available on the website.

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Deborah Murphy, Statistics and Research Branch, Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) has been appointed as a Visiting Fellow with the ARK Policy Unit. During her fellowship Deborah will be examining the links between academics and policy makers in a number of administrations across the UK, in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. This will include looking at the types of structures and models that exist for academics to engage with the policy making process and at what stages of the policy making cycle this occurs.

Deborah's project will aim to assess the different models and ways of working to identify innovation and practice which would be useful in the Northern Ireland context.  

In September the ARK Policy Unit held a roundtable looking at Critical Urban Space. Professionals, policy makers, NGOs and academics explored the ambition for place quality in Northern Ireland including the recognition of existing assets, the policy framework, procurement, implementation, and stewardship.

The OFMDFM's Together: Building a United Community is the Executive's Strategic Framework for building good relations across Northern Ireland society. The strategy outlines a range of actions and commitments across four strategic priorities, including Our Shared Community, which asserts that the maintenance and protection of shared space is a cross-cutting responsibility for the entire Northern Ireland Executive, other public bodies and civic society.

Participants explored the challenges and opportunities to work with communities to transform the most contentious public spaces, including temporary spatial interventions, such as 'meanwhile uses' for interface and other contested areas.

A Policy Brief providing background and highlighting the issues discussed at the event will be available on the ARK website soon.

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ARK produces a range of publications, including Research Updates and fact sheets. Most of these are available online. The latest Research Updates (Research Update 95) is Intolerance towards Minority Ethnic Communities: An overview of responses 2005-2013, by Philip McDermott. This report is based on data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey.

For a full list of publications, as well as links, visit our Publications page.  

The Accounts of the Conflict project has organised an international conference on 17-18 November 2014. The aim of this event - 'Digitally Archiving Stores for Peacebuilding' - is to explore and examine the role of digital archives of personal narratives, oral histories or testimonies in societies emerging from conflict. The conference aims to attract both academics and practitioners from around the world with an interest in how storytelling and archiving can contribute to peacebuilding and social change in a range of diverse contexts.

The Conference is a showcase event of the Accounts of the Conflict project, which is building a digital archive for the long-term preservation and dissemination of stories related to the conflict in, and about, Northern Ireland.

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ARK is a joint initiative between Queen's University and the University of Ulster, and began in 2000. Our mission is to make social science knowledge on Northern Ireland easily accessible to the widest possible audience. Most of our dissemination is via our website at www.ark.ac.uk, which is divided into four main areas:

• Surveys
• Conflict, Politics and Elections
• Policy, Research and Resources
• Outreach, Dissemination and Training - including publications and events

Find out more