By Judith Sixsmith
Every researcher eventually confronts the same unsettling question: Is any of this actually making a difference? We collect stories, analyse data, craft papers and reports and yet the people in our studies often see little change in their daily lives. That gap can feel especially stark when working with groups who have spent decades navigating exclusion and marginalisation.
The IncludeAge project brought this reality into sharp focus. We set out to explore community inclusion, health, wellbeing and participation for mid-older LGBT+ people and mid-older people with learning disabilities. What became clear early on was that the work could not stay in academic spaces. It had to speak to everyday experiences and to the practical realities of the organisations supporting these communities.
Much of this work began by listening. Participants described moments that shaped their sense of belonging: walking into a community space and feeling unsure of the welcome; sitting in a waiting room where nothing signalled that their identity would be understood; trying to join a group where the atmosphere wasn’t overtly hostile but didn’t feel open either. These small, ordinary encounters, filtered through their life stories, revealed the subtle but powerful barriers that accumulate over time. They reminded us that inclusion is lived one moment at a time.
But real change cannot rest only on personal stories. Organisations themselves exist within their own pressures such as staffing shortages, limited budgets, shifting policies, competing priorities. Even with strong intentions, they cannot simply transform overnight. If research is to make a difference, it has to acknowledge these constraints and work with them rather than against them. That means understanding what organisations are already trying to do, where their energy is focused, and how insights from lived experience can strengthen rather than overwhelm existing agendas.
The real task of IncludeAge, then, became one of translation. On one side were the nuanced, emotional realities of people’s lives; on the other, the structured, time-pressed world of organisational policy and practice. Bringing these into conversation required patience, honesty and a willingness to adapt. It means showing that the stories people shared were not just accounts of struggle but starting points for realistic, meaningful change.
The impact we’d like to see may not be dramatic, but needs to be real: people recognised for who they are, rather than what they are not, practitioners feeling more confident engaging with issues of ageing and identity; community groups reconsidering how welcoming their activities truly are; organisations beginning internal conversations about accessibility and participation. These small shifts can accumulate and slowly reshape the places and spaces people move through every day.
If IncludeAge has taught us anything, it is that research makes a difference when it stays close to the ordinary past and present moments that matter while remaining sensitive to the practicalities of those trying to make change happen. Impact is not an endpoint but an ongoing relationship; one grounded in listening, collaboration and a shared commitment to making everyday life a little more inclusive, one interaction at a time.
