When we move more, we become smarter; as we become stronger, chronic pain decreases. Greater movement, especially in social contexts, improves collaboration. As we move, not only do we reduce stress: we improve our capacity to handle stressful situations and to see more options for creative new solutions. Movement enhances both strength and stamina, improves bone mineral density and balance, reducing incidence of falling and associated hip injuries (causes of death in the elderly). Movement complements other functions, from assisting with sleep and therefore memory and cognition, to helping with diet and associated hormones - improving insulin sensitivity and balancing cortisol. There are recent studies showing benefits of movement related to dementia. And yet, physical inactivity is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide; sedentarism has been called the "new smoking". Meanwhile costs to UK GDP from sedentarism and associated disease are increasing - from sick days lost to work, to elders losing mobility and having to move into care homes. We have designed ourselves into our sedentarism: sitting during our commute, at desks while we work, and at home on the sofa. There is a critical need to design ourselves back into the natural effects of health accrued simply by moving more. We need solutions that will help build both the evidence and the experience that movement can enhance and benefit people's lives. New technologies are transforming our ability to capture lifestyle data on individuals in real time. Consumer technologies such as step counters and wifi scales are the tip of an iceberg - research programmes worldwide are proposing lifestyle data capture from devices ranging from video cameras to electricity meters to wearables. Meanwhile pervasive connectivity allows that data to be transmitted, processed through powerful machine learning tools and provided back to people in a heartbeat. While we understand the potential technologies, we do not yet know how to leverage the technology effectively to support transformative health. Current approaches in ehealth generally only reach a small part of the population that is already interested in fitness, personal data capture, or both. Their uptake is, furthermore, of dubious effect as two recent medical reviews have shown. To have a national impact on health and wellbeing, to reduce the crippling burden of long term health conditions and to move healthcare from the clinic to the community, we need to reach everyone, across a range of abilities and aspirations. We need to connect the potential of the technology with the potential of people and realise the benefits of a healthy, brilliant, population. Realising this potential requires research on novel technical solutions, supported by theories from sports and health sciences on blending appropriate movement strategies for particular performance aspirations to behavioural and cognitive sciences on ways to engage people to make effective and meaningful progress. We need to understand what measures are appropriate not just to evaluate progress, but to guide it and adapt to it. To have meaningful impact across these dimensions we need to combine a range of expertise including sensor networks, data analytics, interactive visualisation, human computer interacton, online citizen engagement, behaviour change, sports, exercise. In this network we focus on movement as a locus for health: it is our test case as it drives so many other benefits that are of value: economically, socially and culturally. The current call is the ideal opportunity to establish our proposed network to develop an interdisciplinary UK community that will address the EPSRC Grand Challenge of transforming community health and care through the delivery of tested technologies that promote wellbeing by providing timely, individualised feedback that encourages appropriate activities.

This 3-year research programme aims to examine how we can design, test, deliver and evaluate digital resources to facilitate structured activity programmes for 'health connectivity' in older age. Through examining the feasibility and impact of a digital approach to two existing initiatives, intergenerational physical activity (IGPA) and sports-based intergenerational reminiscence (SBIR), the research will demonstrate the potential for development of related products and services to enhance support for health in later life. Developing and strengthening older people's 'connectivities' - their links with community, resources and meaningful activities - is a key part of supporting healthy ageing and reducing health inequalities in later life. Social connectivity and increasingly, digital connectivity, are pillars of what we here term 'health connectivity', or an individual's links to supports for health and well-being. Both IGPA and SBIR are designed to deliver activities in ways which foster social connectivity for participants within and between generations, increasing mutual understanding and empathy. The impact of social connectivity on older people's health behaviours and health outcomes is well established, as is risk of reduced social connectivity in later life due to factors such as area deprivation and conditions like visual, hearing and cognitive impairment. Far less is known about the most effective ways to maintain and improve connectedness and so optimise those benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into focus the need to be able to deliver programmes which support older people's social connectivity such as IGPA and SBIR effectively in a socially distanced world, but digital connectivity-connectedness through digital technology - was already of growing importance to older people in enabling them to access community, information and other resources in addition to eHealth applications and online healthcare services. COVID-19 has also brought into stark relief the need to urgently address so called 'digital divides', inequalities in access to digital connectivity through age, economic disadvantage and functional limitations, and this programme will stimulate developments which help to reduce such inequalities. The research programme, to be delivered by an interdisciplinary team of researchers based at the Universities of Plymouth and Stirling, consists of six 6-month inter-linked and co-dependant work packages (WPs) and will employ an innovative intergenerational co-production approach throughout. In WP1, information sharing mechanisms will be developed, a consultative Reference Group constituted, reviews and interviews with intergenerational programming providers to inform subsequent WPs conducted, and outcome measures developed for a pre- and post- testing of IGPA and SBIR participants. In WP2 community dwelling older people and younger participants in Cornwall (64) and Scotland (32) and 48 residents from 12 care homes (16 Stirling/32 Cornwall) will be recruited via partner organisations and form 20 researcher-supported intergenerational co-production groups (ICGs) for WP3. Following baseline outcome assessments, each ICG will meet bi-weekly for 6 months to share experiences of sport and physical activity and explore and test assistive technologies for either IGPA or SBIR. Recording of meetings and researcher observations will be thematically analysed to document those processes and identify themes around user needs and product ideas. In WP4 findings will be shared and the WP team will work with SME business partners to innovate new technologies to support IGPA and SBIR, with SMEs design concepts tested by the ICGs to inform development of prototypes tested by the ICGs in WP5, ending with post-test outcome assessments. Project-spanning implementation of the impact, knowledge exchange and communications strategy, coordination across interlinked empirical WPs, and dissemination activities are all included within WP6