Introduction

Drawing on our analyses of archival materials, conference documentation and publications, this chapter discusses the evolution of British gerontology as reflected through the research presented at the annual conferences of the British Society of Gerontology (BSG) between 1971 and 2018. The society's annual conferences have, over nearly 50 years, showcased a diverse and extensive corpus of UK and international research, as well as contributions from policy makers and practitioners. Marshalling nearly five decades of conference materials into a single chapter is clearly unrealistic and we have, therefore, made decisions as to how best to convey a flavour of such a varied body of research. As a first step, the information from our data extraction templates has been used to compile the detailed table found in Appendix 2. This table is subdivided into 25 major conference themes, over 100 sub-themes and more than 600 topics. Between them, these themes, sub-themes and topics illustrate the diversity and continuity of gerontological research over the course of conference history. Although not highlighted separately, it should be noted that there are, or have been, international dimensions and contributions to many of the themes and topics listed in Appendix 2.

Our analyses also suggested three pragmatic categories within which to group examples of how gerontological research has evolved, reflecting both the journey and the potential of gerontology as an expanding field of interest. First, we identify those themes that have had a continuous presence throughout the history of British gerontology conferences; second is a strand of themes that have waxed and waned over the past five decades; and third, there are themes that may be classed as ‘new’ or emerging. Within this framework, the chapter illustrates the contributions BSG conferences have made by focusing on a particular theme in each of the three categories. As Appendix 2 shows, there were many themes in each of the categories that we might have discussed here and, as we have already highlighted, it would be difficult to do justice to the diversity of research represented in the conference materials. Instead, we have opted to focus on themes that, in a number of ways, have been highlighted by our research participants as important.