At this year’s Dementia Awareness Week (between 1 and 7 June 2026), ACRC Academy students Deniz, Elaine and Rachel attended the inaugural Dementia.ED Conference. Hosted by Dementia.ED, a University of Edinburgh-based network connecting those working in dementia and dementia-related research, the event brought together diverse perspectives, including a couple familiar ACRC faces. ACRC Academy Students Rachel Thomsen, Elaine Addington and Deniz Hepdogan at the Dementia.ED conference. Photograph by Douglas Robertson. On the second day of June, Deniz, Elaine, and Rachel attended the Dementia.ED ‘Interdisciplinary Futures’ conference at Edinburgh’s Futures Institute. The event showcased the wide range of dementia research taking place across the university, bringing together a bunch of friendly faces from departments across the University of Edinburgh, Scottish Government, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the NIHR. The conference began with lunch and a poster exhibition to peruse, before opening with a speech from Dr Tom Russ, who set the scene by positioning the research currently taking place across the university within the wider dementia landscape. Tom emphasised the importance of all being in a room together, reflecting on Dementia.ED’s core values of collaboration, curiosity, and connection.This was followed by presentations from speakers across a range of disciplines and career stages, including Dr Rose Penfold and Prof Tughrul Arslan. After these intriguing presentations, a short break gave attendees a chance to connect over tea and pastries. This also provided an opportunity to take part in the networking game set by Angel Garmpi, Project Administrator for the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre and the brilliant driving force behind the conference. At registration, we had been invited to select a sticker that best represented our backgrounds (STEM, Life Sciences, or Arts and Humanities) and to speak with others with different stickers. It was great fun and a good way to get the room chatting about interdisciplinarity, which sat at the heart of the conference theme. Panel discussion on “Co-producing and co-designing dementia research” Photograph by Douglas Robertson The following panel discussion centred on the theme of co-producing and co-designing dementia research, with our own Deniz Hepdogan among the panelists. The wide variety of perspectives, from Deniz’s own research of participatory design approaches to sexuality in care homes (Yoni Lefevre) to participatory arts in Dementia research (Dr Katey Warran & Dr Olivia Turner) made for a fascinating discussion. As with all the presentations, the session prompted a flurry of questions from the floor, with many attendees left pondering all the different possibilities for co-research.ACRC Fellow Dr Jean Stafford was next to present on “Investigating temporal relationships between psychiatric disorders and subsequent dementia: a Swedish population-based cohort study.” It’s always a pleasure to hear Jean talk about her impressive research that uses large-scale population data to better understand cognitive ageing, and mental and social health in later life, and we are increasingly excited to see where her fellowship will take this work next. Featuring a broad mix of researchers at different stages, from pre- to post-doctoral journeys, these short presentations were a great way to focus in on the trajectories of current research. Closing remarks came from Prof Heather Wilkinson - who summed up the day brilliantly whilst placing right and centre the development of the network, leaving everyone present with the challenge of driving it forward.If you’d like to join the Dementia.ED network, follow the link below. Your work does not need to focus solely on dementia - the network regularly shares methods, events, and approaches that are relevant across the wider field of ageing. Join the Dementa.ED network - Fill in form This article was published on Thursday 11 June 2026
