To commemorate this huge milestone we’re celebrating BCS70’s contribution to science and society by publishing 50 stories over 50 weeks on the CLS website and on social media. Every week until March 2021, check this space and Twitter for stories about study members’ lives, research findings, study data, podcasts, animated timelines, and more!
Follow the BCS70 50 stories campaign using the hashtag #BCS7050stories on Twitter, and on the CLS website.
Over the course of six weeks, ‘50 Years of Life in Britain’ explores the contribution BCS70 participants have made to improving British science and society. The six-part series tells their story, and charts the first five decades of the study.
It’s April 1970. Simon and Garfunkel have topped the UK charts with A Bridge Over Troubled Water, the Beatles’ split has hit the headlines, and the crew of Apollo 13 are preparing for lift off.
Meanwhile, in hospitals and homes up and down the country, thousands of new babies, all born within a week of each other, are being recruited to what will become one of the longest running and most important studies of its kind – the 1970 British Cohort Study.
It was the decade of big hair, fluorescent socks, electropop, BMX bikes and the ZX Spectrum.
We surveyed cohort members twice during the 1980s, at ages 10 and 16. Over the course of the next seven stories, we share more about the data collected during this period and the insights we've gained from them.
Grunge entered the mainstream, the dotcom industry took off, and Labour swept to victory with a commitment to “education, education, education”.
These next stories explore BCS70 in the 1990s – the data, the discoveries and the impact.
We’d entered the social media age with Friends Reunited, followed by the infinitely more successful Facebook. Meanwhile, Apple brought us the iPod, transforming how we listened to music.
We surveyed cohort members three times in this first decade of the new millennium. The information collected has been used to explore a wide range of issues, from women’s pay to social mobility.
Check back in January 2021 for BCS70 stories from the 2000s.
RT @WhatWorksWB: We love the cohort studies - findings here reinforce that 'it's not so great at 48' but finds that 1970 Gen X have found m…
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Our bibliography is a searchable database of published work based on our cohort studies. Search by keyword, author, date range and journal.
Data from our studies are mainly available through the UK Data Service. We run training to support researchers who are interested in using our studies in their work.
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