| Sumario: | Purpose The goals of the ISL are 1) to understand the mechanisms of age-associated disorders and functional and cognitive declines; .2) to develop the best holistic interventions to counter those declines; 3) to disseminate this knowledge to the community, to aging adults, and to their care partners; 4) to cultivate the scientific, social, and political leadership on this issue that will engage the nation. Method ISL is a university-based Center supported financially through the Office of the Provost, and a critical contributor to our Age-Friendly University initiative. We typically have about 90 affiliates from a broad variety of disciplines and Colleges on campus. To address our first two goals, ISL organizes interdisciplinary research projects focused on applying for federal funding to support its scientific mission. We also provide a pilot grant program to form interdisciplinary teams and have arranged "collaborative collisions" to put faculty interested in interdisciplinary research together. ISL also specializes in intervention research projects, particularly those supported by gerontechnology. Aside from using a listserv to announce funding opportunities, ISL also has a regular brown bag lunch series during the Fall and Spring semesters to enable interdisciplinary exchanges, a Successful Longevity lecture series speaker twice a year, and manages a participant registry containing approximately 2600 adults age 60+ who have volunteered to participate in aging research projects. We also provide an annual student poster day event to allow graduate students from different disciplines to meet. To support our dissemination goal, we have a joint advisory board consisting of members of the university and the community that meets quarterly to discuss how we can better disseminate our findings and organize our activities. We also invite community members to attend our brown bag and speaker series events, though this has shifted during the pandemic to virtual meetings. The Director and other ISL members also give talks to community groups. To support virtual meetings during Covid-19 lockdowns, we provided training on the use of Zoom videoconferencing to community members. We partner broadly with other groups with interests in aging on campus and in the community to sponsor outreach events such as an annual transportation day and partner on interdisciplinary conferences. We also publish a quarterly newsletter and an online blog that features ISL research projects. We also maintain a web page and a Facebook page that features daily postings. Results and Discussion ISL has created research collaborations that have led to federal funding for interdisciplinary teams. ISL collaborates closely with our community senior center for events such as senior expo, recognizing nonagenarians, supporting the City of Tallahassee's Wellness & Retirement event for their employees, and cross-advertises other community and campus events. Having links to and from the community has enabled us to address dissemination of research findings beyond traditional academic outlets such as journals and scientific meetings.
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