Workers aged 55+ are not always utilised or valued as much as they could be in the workplace, yet their contributions are increasingly necessary as the European population ages. Many of them need to work for longer than they expect, due to pension fund shortfalls and changes in official retirement ages. For some, this will require a change in perspective and strategies for managing self and career. The proposed project will integrate currently fragmented approaches to show how older workers experience their ageing in the workplace (including others’ perceptions of them), their strategies for dealing with it, and the consequences for their productivity and well-being. Interviews will be conducted with 40 workers aged 55+ and 8 human resource managers in four organisations in the IT sector and four in the health sector - two organisations of each type in the UK and in Bulgaria. A conceptual model will be developed and tested using mainly quantitative questionnaire data from 500 workers aged 55+ in the same two countries and sectors. This will identify how the workplace (including human resource practices) can be designed to facilitate the successful participation of older workers, and also the best strategies workers themselves can use. Case studies, guidance notes and training materials will be produced and piloted. The conduct and dissemination of the work will be achieved with the co-operation of a number of organisations that promote effective practices at work. Many are already well-known to the researcher and the host organisation. Academic papers will be published in leading journals based in Europe. Dr Stanimira Taneva is the proposed researcher. She has substantial experience in applied psychology research and in promoting the career development of diverse groups of people especially in Bulgaria. The host organisation is the Institute of Work Psychology (IWP) at the University of Sheffield, UK. IWP is renowned for its excellent research on people and work.