This website is mainly for families wanting to learn more about the study. If you’re a researcher, you might like to visit the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies website for more information about the new study.
About Generation New Era
Generation New Era is a groundbreaking scientific study of around 30,000 babies born in 2026, and their families. It’s the first UK-wide study of its kind in 25 years, and the largest ever.
If you’ve had a baby already in 2026, or if you are expecting one, you could be invited to take part! You can expect to hear from us when your baby is around 9 months old.
The study aims to follow the babies as they grow up in our changing world. By providing vital new insights into children’s health and development, Generation New Era will help researchers, governments and service providers to improve the lives of children and families in the UK.
About the families invited to be part of Generation New Era
The study aims to include babies born over a whole year, between January and December 2026 — a total of around 30,000 families.
Families will be chosen to reflect the diversity within each region and country, and across the UK as a whole.
Unfortunately, families are not able to nominate themselves for the study. This is so we can make sure we have the right balance of different families taking part and that the study represents the population as a whole. Instead, we will write to each family individually to invite them to join the study. Each family chosen for the study is unique and cannot be replaced by anyone else.
Families will be chosen at random from records of births held by government departments and agencies and will receive an invitation to take part. Approval by special committees in each country is needed before these organisations are allowed to share the names, addresses and additional information about parents and their babies with the study.
Before we start contacting families about joining Generation New Era later this year, we will be doing a final test with a small group of families with babies born in October 2025. This is called a pilot. The pilot will give us an opportunity to test out how the study is going and incorporate their feedback into our plans.
About the UK’s birth cohort studies
Generation New Era is a special kind of study called a birth cohort study. These studies follow children from birth throughout their lives. They show how children grow and develop, and how childhood experiences affect later lives.
The UK is a world leader in this kind of research, with national studies of people born in 1946, 1958, 1970 and 2000 still running today. Together, these studies have followed the lives of over 60,000 people – through early life, school, leaving home, getting a job and starting a family of their own.
About the management and funding of the study
The Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), at University College London (UCL), is in charge of Generation New Era. CLS is the UK’s leading cohort studies research centre and runs birth cohort studies following groups of people born in 1958, 1970 and 2000. They were chosen to run the study because they are experts in this kind of research. UCL is one of the world’s leading universities.
The study team also includes Swansea University in Wales, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and Ulster University in Northern Ireland. Survey interviewers will carried out by three independent research organisations: Ipsos, NatCen and Verian. All interviewers are required to follow the rules of the Market Research Society Code of Conduct. They are specially trained and carefully chosen to work on this study.
Generation New Era is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the UK’s leading academic funder of social research and part of UK Research and Innovation. The ESRC also pays for several of the UK’s other cohort studies.
Read more about some of the key people working on the study on our Meet the team page
Information for families who took part in 2022-23
Generation New Era will follow the lives of around 30,000 babies born in 2026, but it first began with a much smaller group of babies all born in 2022-23. This paved the way for today’s study, and we’re incredibly grateful to the participants in this. More information about this is available here.