6th January 2026
For the final edition of the ILC-UK’s newsletter in 2025, we thought we’d once again borrow the format from a certain music streaming company.
In 2025, we’re proud to report an average 51.4% opening rate for our Friday three newsletter – an improvement on last year’s 49% average opening rate. While it’s never a competition, this compares favourably with the 42.4% average open rate across all industries and 46.5% for charities.
Some of you will have joined us at one or more of the 50 events we held in 11 different countries, attended by 2,919 people. These included an event with the British Embassy in Slovakia – a first for the ILC.
Other top highlights included:
- Our Future of Ageing 2025, with Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, as the keynote speaker – and don’t forget to take advantage of our early bird offer for Future of Ageing 2026.
- Being invited in both March and June to give oral evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee inquiry into Preparing for an ageing society, and in December appearing before the Work and Pensions Committee as part of its inquiry into the Transition to State Pension Age.
- An invitation to speak at the UN’s Second World Summit on Social Development in Doha, Qatar, alongside heads of state and governments. This prestigious event was held 30 years after the first such summit in 1995. We also held back-to-back events around our Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index at the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May and at October’s World Health Summit in Berlin – another first for the ILC – alongside numerous other global events from Denmark to South Africa.
We published 16 reports on topics ranging from building an age-friendly night-time economy in Greater Manchester to growing older with HIV, and we launched our new UK Better Lives Index supported by Edwards Lifesciences, the Hallmark Foundation and Pfizer.
We were involved in more podcasts this year than ever before, with members of the ILC team appearing on a range of shows including Brightwell’s Pensions Unpacked and LCP’s Beyond Curious, exploring the challenges and opportunities of longevity. Of special note, was David Sinclair’s invitation as an expert to discuss dependency ratios, retirement and state pension age on the popular economics podcast More or Less with Tim Harford on BBC Radio 4.
At the start of the year, we held a webinar, supported by M&G, as part of our project, Strengthening the intergenerational contract, and streamed it via YouTube. It has since become ILC’s most-viewed video since joining the platform in 2015 – a positively viral 38.6k views.
For a small organisation, we’ve again had a strong year in the media. Highlights included coverage of the ageism and stigma faced by older people seeking mental health support following publication of our Mind the age gap report, supported by Boehringer Ingelheim. The story generated extensive national, regional and international coverage, with an estimated potential reach of around 40 million people, driven by national reporting by the Press Association, in The Independent and widespread syndication across global digital news platforms.
Later in the year, The Times published the initial findings from the UK Better Lives Index. This reached an estimated 25 million people following pick-up across over 80 different national and regional media outlets. And the story engaged local and national politicians, including some who had not previously engaged with us – from the Member for Foyle in Northern Ireland, Sinead McLaughlin, to Victoria Atkins MP, former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Among team members who use Spotify, the average chronological age is 48, while the average “listening age” comes in at just 28. Spotify’s new metric compares users’ habits with those of others on the platform and assigns an age based on typical patterns – meaning our playlists resemble those of people two decades younger. It’s a light-hearted reminder that attitudes and cultural tastes don’t necessarily age in step with the calendar, and that technology can democratise experience. For those of us who spend our working lives challenging stereotypes about older – and younger – people, we’ll happily take this finding and keep turning up the volume.
Overall, as for many others, 2025 has been a bit of a rollercoaster, but we’re finishing the year on a roll and we’re grateful to have you along for the journey. As a regular reader – which, if you’ve made it this far on what is for many the last working Friday of the year, you surely are – thank you for being one of our top fans.
The work we do would simply not be possible without the valuable support we receive from our funders, the members of ILC’s Partners Programme, our Trustees, Insight Experts, Strategic Advisory Board, and our friends and colleagues – too many to list here.
Written by Emily Evans, ILC-UK Senior Communications and Engagement Manager
