Programme

Conference Outline

Sunday, March 22Monday, March 23Tuesday, March 24Wednesday, March 25Thursday, March 26Friday, March 27

18:00-20:00: Welcome Reception | The Public Red Akasaka
This is a free event open to all registered delegates

Location: Tokyo International Forum

11:30-12:30: Conference Check-in | Hall B5 Foyer

12:30-12:35: Announcements | Hall B5 & Online

12:35-13:00: Welcome Address & Recognition of IAFOR Scholarship Winners | Hall B5 & Online
Joseph Haldane, IAFOR, Japan

13:00-13:25: Keynote Presentation | Hall B5 & Online
13:25-13:40: Q&A

13:45-14:10: Keynote Presentation | Hall B5 & Online
14:10-14:25: Q&A

14:25-14:35: Conference Photograph | Hall B5

14:35-15:00: Break

15:00-16:00: Panel Presentation | Hall B5 & Online
16:00-16:15: Q&A

19:00-21:00: Conference Dinner | Shunju Tameikesanno
This is an optional ticketed event

Location: Toshi Center Hotel

09:00-10:00: Conference Check-in & Coffee | Subaru Room (5F)

10:00-10:45: IAFOR Information Session | Orion Hall (5F)
Melina Neophytou, IAFOR, Japan
Matthew Chima, IAFOR, Japan
Lowell Sheppard, IAFOR, Japan

This session provides an overview of what to expect at the conference, including guidance on preparing your presentation, publishing opportunities, and ways to engage with IAFOR. You will receive practical tips on setting up your presentation, understanding your role at the conference, including how to attract a larger audience to your session. We will also outline the publishing opportunities available, including how to submit your work to be included in the Conference Proceedings or IAFOR Journals. This session also offers a chance to explore the opportunities for deeper engagement, whether through networking with fellow delegates or getting involved more with IAFOR. Join us, and get ready to present, publish, and participate.

10:45-11:10: Keynote Presentation | Orion Hall (5F) & Online
11:10-11:25: Q&A

11:25-12:25: The Forum | Orion Hall (5F) & Online
Melina Neophytou, IAFOR, Japan (Moderator)

12:25-14:00: Extended Break

14:00-15:00: Conference Poster Session 1 | Orion Hall (5F)

14:00-14:15: Break

14:15-15:15: Conference Poster Session 2 | Orion Hall (5F)

15:15-15:45: Extended Break

15:45-16:45: Cultural Event | Orion Hall (5F)
This is a free event open to all registered delegates

Conference Venue: Toshi Center Hotel

08:30-09:15: Conference Check-in & Coffee | 6F

09:15-10:55: Onsite Parallel Session 1

10:55-11:10: Coffee Break

11:10-12:50: Onsite Parallel Session 2

12:50-13:05: Coffee Break

13:05-14:45: Onsite Parallel Session 3

14:45-15:00: Coffee Break

15:00-16:40: Onsite Parallel Session 4

16:40-16:55: Coffee Break

16:55-18:35: Onsite Parallel Session 5

Conference Venue: Toshi Center Hotel

08:30-09:00 Conference Check-in & Coffee | 6F

09:00-10:40: Onsite Parallel Session 1

10:40-10:55: Coffee Break

10:55-12:35: Onsite Parallel Session 2

12:35-12:50: Coffee Break

12:50-14:30: Onsite Parallel Session 3

14:30-14:45: Coffee Break

14:45-16:25: Onsite Parallel Session 4

16:30-16:45: Onsite Closing Session | Room 608 (6F)

Conference Venue: Online via Zoom

09:55-10:00: Message from IAFOR

10:00-11:40: Online Parallel Session 1

11:40-11:50: Break

11:50-13:30: Online Parallel Session 2

13:30-13:40: Break

13:40-15:20: Online Parallel Session 3

15:20-15:25: Message from IAFOR

*Please be aware that the above schedule may be subject to change.

Conference Programme & Abstract Book

The draft version of the Conference Programme will be available online on February 09, 2026. Corresponding Authors will be notified of this publication by email.
The Conference Programme & Abstract Book will contain session information and a detailed day-to-day presentation schedule. The final schedule, along with details on how to access the online sessions and what to prepare for your presentation, will be available on the Conference Website from March 02, 2026.

*Please be aware that the above schedule may be subject to change.

Accepted Presentations

One of the greatest strengths of IAFOR’s international conferences is their international and intercultural diversity.
As of January 13, 2026, AGen2026 has received over 390 submissions from more than 47 countries and territories - including: India, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.

View Accepted Presentations

Featured Presentations

To be Announced

  • Designing Care Futures: Built Environments, Health Systems, and Human-Robot Cohabitation in an Ageing World
    Designing Care Futures: Built Environments, Health Systems, and Human-Robot Cohabitation in an Ageing World
    Keynote Presentation: Evangelia Chrysikou
  • Longevity, Happiness, and the Art of Community: Lessons from Japan and Beyond
    Longevity, Happiness, and the Art of Community: Lessons from Japan and Beyond
    Panel Presentation: Lowell Sheppard
  • Understanding Cognitive Impairment: Placing Dementia Within a Realistic Framework
    Understanding Cognitive Impairment: Placing Dementia Within a Realistic Framework
    Panel Presentation: James W. McNally

Featured Speakers

To be Announced

  • Evangelia Chrysikou
    Evangelia Chrysikou
    University College London, United Kingdom
  • Hector Garcia
    Hector Garcia
    Author, Japan
  • James W. McNally
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, United States
  • Hiroshi Ota
    Hiroshi Ota
    Hitotsubashi University, Japan
  • Lowell Sheppard
    Lowell Sheppard
    Never Too Late Academy & IAFOR, Japan

Important Information Emails

All registered attendees will receive an Important Information email and updates in the run-up to the conference. Please check your email inbox for something from "iafor.org". If you can not find these emails in your normal inbox, it is worth checking in your spam or junk mail folders as many programs filter out emails this way. If these did end up in one of these folders, please add the address to your acceptable senders' folder by whatever method your email program can do this.

Previous Programming

View details of programming for past AGen conferences via the links below.

AGen2025 AGen2024 AGen2023
AGen2022 AGen2021 AGen2020
AGen2019 AGen2018 AGen2017
AGen2016 AGen2015
Designing Care Futures: Built Environments, Health Systems, and Human-Robot Cohabitation in an Ageing World
Keynote Presentation: Evangelia Chrysikou

Population ageing represents not only a demographic or technological challenge, but fundamentally a design challenge. The built environment is not a passive backdrop to care; it actively shapes health, autonomy, behaviour, and social relations across the life course. Yet responses to ageing and vulnerability have often prioritised medical or technological solutions, while the spatial conditions of everyday life remain insufficiently addressed. This keynote integrates three interconnected domains: age-inclusive built environments, healthcare planning, and the emerging concept of human–robot cohabitation. Across hospitals, community facilities, and domestic settings, spatial design and health planning influence whether care environments promote dignity, resilience, and wellbeing, or reinforce dependency and exclusion. Effective planning therefore requires alignment between physical space, service models, and population needs.

Cohabitation is a particularly critical lens in the context of care robotics. Robots are not neutral machines: as they enter environments of vulnerability, they develop forms of agency, shape routines, influence human behaviour, and gradually reconfigure social norms. Coexistence becomes reciprocal: humans adapt to robots as much as robots adapt to humans. This process has direct implications for housing design, spatial organisation, ethics, and governance. By foregrounding cohabitation, this keynote advances an integrated, design-led agenda that positions architecture, health systems, and intelligent technologies as inseparable components of equitable and humane ageing futures.

Read presenter's biography
Longevity, Happiness, and the Art of Community: Lessons from Japan and Beyond
Panel Presentation: Lowell Sheppard

As Asia and the wider world confront rapidly aging populations, a pressing interdisciplinary question emerges: What makes life not only long, but happy, connected, and meaningful in its later stages? This group of distinguished panellists will share their perspectives on how community environments shape emotional well-being, psychological resilience, and functional independence well into advanced age. Drawing on research centred in Japan’s super-aging society, the panel explores how community-driven structures such as moai (模合) groups, neighbourhood support networks, exercise rituals, festivals, and intergenerational spaces directly contribute to late-life happiness. And how education, in the form of continued learning, teaching, mentoring, and curiosity, can help sustain life-long purpose and emotional and mental vitality.

The discussion will highlight the interplay between psychology, behaviour, purpose, and social connection. The panellists will show how these factors collectively influence a healthy lifespan by integrating perspectives from gerontology, psychology, behavioural science, education, and development studies. The session will offer insights into why older adults thrive in environments where belonging is strong, relationships are deep, and lifelong learning is encouraged, and how purpose and social identity protect against loneliness and cognitive decline. The panel will specifically discuss how lessons from Japan can inform policy, community design, education, and behavioural interventions across cultures, where long life is lived richly.

Read presenters' biographies
Understanding Cognitive Impairment: Placing Dementia Within a Realistic Framework
Panel Presentation: James W. McNally

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) updated the definition of dementia in May 2013, during the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in San Francisco. Major neurocognitive disorder’ (MND) replaced the term ‘dementia’ in order to reduce stigma and to focus on the decline from a previous level of functioning rather than the deficit. The DSM-5 also allowed for the inclusion of dementias where other cognitive domains were affected first, such as in vascular or frontotemporal dementia. Unfortunately, the redefinition of dementia to MND allowed a broad reinterpretation of risks associated with ‘dementia’ to emerge in the research literature, often incorporating chronic health conditions or sensory disabilities as predictors of future dementia. Based upon these loose interpretations, recent estimates suggest that 40 percent or more of the current world's population will have dementia in the coming decades. This panel will place definitions of MND within the framework of a progressive neurological disease and ways we can intelligently address the needs of individuals facing cognitive impairment.

Read presenters' biographies
Evangelia Chrysikou
University College London, United Kingdom

Biography

Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, RIBA is Associate Professor within the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at University College London, United Kingdom, and Founder/Programme Director of the university’s MSc Healthcare Facilities. A multi-awarded RIBA architect and healthcare planner, Dr Chrysikou has published widely and won several prestigious grants and fellowships from international organisations, including Horizon 2020, UKRI, Wellcome, British Academy, Royal Society of New Zealand, and the Sasakawa Foundation. Her research interests lie at the spectrum of inclusion in relation to design, spanning across the disciplines of built environment, health, digital technologies and the social sciences. Dr Chrysikou is a member of the National Accessibility Authority, Hellenic Republic by invitation from the Greek Prime Minister, and a member of the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Life Sciences and Healthcare Council Leadership Committee. She was the coordinator of the Environment Section of the EIPonAHA, EU, and has worked as a consultant for international government bodies such as the Japanese MOFA, Peru Reconstruction Mechanism, and the British Government for projects related to healthcare planning and architecture. She was elected Vice-President of the Urban Public Health section of EUPHA in 2018.

Keynote Presentation (2026) | Designing Care Futures: Built Environments, Health Systems, and Human–Robot Cohabitation in an Ageing World
Hector Garcia
Author, Japan

Biography

TBA

Panel Presentation (2026) | Longevity, Happiness, and the Art of Community: Lessons from Japan and Beyond
James W. McNally
University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, United States

Biography

Dr James W. McNally is the Director of the NACDA Program on Aging, a data archive containing over 1,500 studies related to health and the aging life course. He currently does methodological research on the improvement and enhancement of secondary research data and has been cited as an expert authority on data imputation. Dr McNally has directed the NACDA Program on Aging since 1998 and has seen the archive significantly increase its holdings with a growing collection of seminal studies on the aging life course, health, retirement and international aspects of aging. He has spent much of his career addressing methodological issues with a specific focus on specialised application of incomplete or deficient data and the enhancement of secondary data for research applications. Dr McNally has also worked extensively on issues related to international aging and changing perspectives on the role of family support in the later stages of the aging life course.

Panel Presentation (2026) | Understanding Cognitive Impairment: Placing Dementia Within a Realistic Framework

Previous Presentations

Workshop Presentation (2023) | Aging Data: The National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging
Workshop Presentation (2022) | NACDA: Data on Aging Resources from Research Ideation to Long-Term Preservation and Sharing
Panel Presentation (2022) | Helping Hands: Robotic Assistance in Supporting and Maintaining Social Interactions with Elders
Panel Presentation (2022) | Missing You: Resilience, Renewal and Rebuilding Intergenerational Contact Within Families
Workshop Presentation (2021) | Creating Our New Normal: Responding, Adapting and Thriving in a Post-COVID 19 World
Workshop Presentation (2021) | Aging Data: NACDA & an Open-source Repository
Keynote Workshop Presentation (2020) | Aging Data: NACDA & an Open-source Repository
Featured Presentation (2019) | Defining and Measuring Resilience in an Aging World
Featured Workshop Presentation (2019) | Locating Data for Research: Data Collections and Resources for Thesis Writing, Teaching, and Grant Development for the Social Sciences and the Environment
Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Health Across the Lifecourse
Featured Workshop Presentation (2018) | Locating Data for Research
Featured Presentation (2017) | Methodologies for the Collection of Comparative Community Level Public Health Data: Obtaining Powerful and Statistically Meaningful Findings for Small Populations
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Easts Meets West – Healthy, Active and Beautiful Aging in Asia
Hiroshi Ota
Hitotsubashi University, Japan

Biography

TBA

Keynote Presentation (2026) | TBA
Lowell Sheppard
Never Too Late Academy & IAFOR, Japan

Biography

Mr Lowell Sheppard is an author, speaker, social entrepreneur, and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with a lifelong commitment to social impact, ethical leadership, and exploration. He has worked extensively with established NGOs and start-ups, most notably as the Founder of HOPE International Development Agency Japan. Under his leadership, HOPE-JP has grown to rank among the top 2% of charitable organizations in Japan, achieving the prestigious nintei tax-deductible certification. Mr Sheppard has been a longtime supporter and past speaker at IAFOR Conferences. He currently serves as the organisation’s Director of Development, seeking to expand the Global Fellowship Programme and scholarship opportunities. Mr Sheppard’s passion for social and environmental improvement projects has driven his career. For over two decades, Lowell has served as an informal advisor to companies and boards around the globe.

In pursuit of adventure and deeper insights into ageing and longevity, Mr Sheppard moved onto a sailboat five years ago and has been sailing full-time around Japan, embracing the life of a digital nomad and explorer. After spending fifteen months moored and deeply immersed in the Blue Zone culture of Okinawa, Mr Sheppard set out in 2025 to revisit a journey that had first shaped his life twenty-five years earlier: chasing Japan’s cherry blossoms from south to north. What began as a seasonal passage became a year-long quest, repeatedly visiting and revisiting Japan’s key longevity hotspots—rural prefectures, islands, and communities where people continue to live long, healthy, independent lives. Between these journeys, he regularly returned to his own ‘longevity laboratory’” a remote island village where he lives and observes daily community life at close quarters, blending slow travel, field research, and lived experience.

As an author, his book Never Too Late (Lion Hudson PLC, 2005), published in four languages, became the inspiration for his latest social enterprise, the Never Too Late Academy. His most recent book, Dare to Dream, was shortlisted for the UK Business Book of the Year Award in 2023.

Panel Presentation (2026) | Longevity, Happiness, and the Art of Community: Lessons from Japan and Beyond

Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2022) | Missing You: Resilience, Renewal and Rebuilding Intergenerational Contact Within Families
Keynote Presentation (2018) | Surviving and Thriving: In Pursuit of a Sustainable World – A Unique and Personal Reflection