CLS to lead first new UK-wide study of child development in a generation

The UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies is to lead the first new UK-wide scientific study of babies in a quarter of a century.

Funded by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the groundbreaking Generation New Era study will follow the lives of more than 30,000 babies born in 2026, during their early years, and potentially beyond.

Generation New Era will be jointly led by Co-Directors Professor Alissa Goodman and Professor Lisa Calderwood of the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies and Professor Pasco Fearon of the University of Cambridge.

The £42.8million investment will provide vital new evidence to answer important scientific and policy questions, informing decisions about early years and childcare services to help improve the lives of parents with young children across the UK.

With many families facing multiple social and economic challenges, from rising costs to an uncertain job market, the new study will paint a comprehensive picture of family life and early childhood development in all four nations of the UK today.

“The study can help shape vital government policies and services for babies and parents across the UK. We really hope parents of babies born in 2026 will come and join the study, and with their help, we can support the health and development of this generation, and future generations too.”

Professor Alissa Goodman, UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies

One of the study’s central aims is to capture the voices of ‘seldom-heard’ groups by boosting the numbers of participants from ethnic minority families, low-income households, and those from across the smaller nations. It is estimated that a third of all babies in Wales, and almost half of those in Northern Ireland will be invited to take part.

Innovative data collection methods will enhance the analytical scope of the study and reduce the burden on study participants. Generation New Era will build linkages to administrative health, education and social care records into the study from the outset, and between surveys, families will be invited to complete questionnaires on a smartphone app.

Professor Alissa Goodman (UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies) said: “We are extremely excited and immensely proud to announce the launch of the first new UK-wide birth cohort in a quarter of a century. Generation New Era is a landmark scientific endeavour which will improve the lives of children and benefit science and society for many years to come.

“In such a rapidly changing world, it is vital to have rich data on the lives of children and families, especially those from disadvantaged and less often heard groups. Standing on the shoulders of the UK’s famous birth cohort studies, which have tracked multiple generations of people over the past eight decades, Generation New Era will aim to shine a light on the biggest challenges facing our society today.

“The study can help shape vital government policies and services for babies and parents across the UK. We really hope parents of babies born in 2026 will come and join the study, and with their help, we can support the health and development of this generation, and future generations too.”

Data collection

Generation New Era is set to collect data at two key developmental stages – between 9-11 months and again at 3-4 years – providing crucial insights before children enter formal education. The study will include a sample of babies born over a 12-month window from 1 January to 31 December 2026. Invitations are to be sent to families from summer 2026, in readiness for the first survey sweep beginning in the winter.

In the first phase of the study, interviewers will undertake face-to-face interviews with parents to ask questions about their lives and their child’s development. In the second sweep of data collection, children will undertake a series of assessments to measure their language and learning and physical assessments of height, weight and body fat. Saliva samples for genetic research will also be collected from parents and children.

To expand the analytical scope of the study, the Generation New Era team will seek data linkage consents for health, education and social care records for parents and baby, including Hospital Episode Statistics, Maternity Services Data Set, Community Services Data Set and National Pupil Database records. Linkages to geographical data will enrich survey information with insights about the local environment and service provision.

Between the two sweeps, families will be invited to complete short questionnaires and record their children’s language development and parent-child interaction on the study’s special smartphone app.

Research opportunities

The survey team will collect data on numerous scientific and policy-relevant questions, from physical, mental and social development during the early years to how technological, environmental and social changes affect early childhood experiences.

Crucially, Generation New Era will answer critical questions about how inequalities in children’s development emerge over time and shape their life chances.

Key themes of interest to researchers include:

• Inequality, disadvantage, diversity and context: to study the impact of poverty on children and families, and which factors impact maternal labour market participation and formal and informal childcare use.
• Cognitive, social-emotional development and mental health: to establish timing of developmental inequalities, how family adversity shapes early outcomes, the effects of screen use, and predictors of children’s early mental health problems and school readiness.
• Social determinants and consequences of children’s physical health: to explore factors driving health and developmental inequalities, and the circumstances and services that support better outcomes.

A four-nations study

Generation New Era will invite over 60,000 children and their families from across the UK with the aim of recruiting 30,000 to participate in the project. There will be a particular focus on recruiting fathers as well as mothers and including groups previously underrepresented in population research, giving a voice to as many communities in UK society as possible.

This regional spread will enable the study to collect data from diverse populations across all four nations of the UK, with sample boosts for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, ethnic minorities and low-income families.

In comparison to the share of children recruited to the study from births in England, there will be twice the national share in Scotland, nearly four times in Wales, and almost five times in Northern Ireland, where around 45% of births during the year will be included in the study. Ethnic minority families will be boosted in England and Scotland only due to low population sizes in the other nations.

Families living in low-income areas will be overrepresented in the sample by up to 15% above the national rates in the general population. Young mothers, under 25, will also be well represented in the final sample. To improve future participation and retention in the study, this group will be invited to take part in a qualitative survey to understand their potential barriers to participation, and scientific and policy areas of importance to young parents.

This comprehensive approach will ensure the findings are representative of the experiences of families across the country and that comparisons can be made to help all areas of the UK to learn what works best to improve lives and livelihoods.

As a truly four-nations cohort study, the study team will benefit from the expertise of senior academics based at the universities of Swansea, Ulster, and Edinburgh, who will serve as the study’s leads in their countries.

Generation New Era builds on the success of a smaller foundation study (Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study) announced in 2021 and launched in 2023. Volunteers from the foundation cohort will have an opportunity to help inform the longer-term study design.

Eight decades of discovery

Generation New Era is part of a long tradition of research council-funded UK longitudinal birth cohort studies which have followed the lives of tens of thousands of people over the past eight decades. These include the 1946 National Survey of Health and Development, CLS’s 1958 National Child Development Study, 1970 British Cohort Study and the most recent UK-wide study, which Generation New Era follows, the Millennium Cohort Study.

These studies have shaped the thinking of successive governments, informing a raft of important policies to improve the provision of services for early years, health, education and employment. They have produced evidence that has improved lives across the UK and beyond.

The findings generated by the study will directly inform policy development across government departments, helping to ensure services and support for families are based on robust evidence.

Professor Pasco Fearon (University of Cambridge) said: “Children’s lives have changed dramatically since the last UK birth cohort study was launched at the turn of the century. In the past decade, unprecedented social, technological, political and economic events have taken place that have changed the landscape for families raising children dramatically. So, New UK-wide data are needed urgently to help us understand how these changes impact children as they grow up. And there will be new opportunities and challenges for families coming down the line, like AI, that a study like this can help us to better understand”.

“Generation New Era can help researchers shine a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our society. For example, it can illuminate how digital technology and ‘technoference’ may be affecting early parent-child interactions and children’s outcomes. In addition, with around half of 17-year-olds in families where their parents live apart, these data can provide valuable insights about how evolving family forms shape children’s experiences and later lives.”

Professor Lisa Calderwood (UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies) said: “We’re excited to be able to introduce a range of innovative design features to Generation New Era, including multiple sample boosts, direct recruitment of fathers, novel approaches to interview mode and smartphone-based data collection.

“With the help of these methodological innovations, the study will strive to ensure that all voices across society are captured more comprehensively than ever before. Building public trust will be at the core of the study’s ambitions with a key focus on engaging with underrepresented groups, especially young parents and people from low-income families.”

Consultation events

The UK research community, parent and participant groups and other stakeholders will have the opportunity to engage with the study team in the autumn to help inform the questionnaire design and plans to ensure the success of the study.

A series of in-person consultation events took place this October in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. The events brought together researchers, third sector organisations and policymakers to input on plans for Generation New Era. Registration is still open for our Online event for anyone who will potentially use data or evidence from the study in the future or who has a more general interest in cohort study data.

Follow the links to the Help shape Generation New Era page for full details and to register.

 

 

Back to news listing