30,000 children born in 2026 to be followed in long-term study co-led by University of Cambridge

Cambridge will co-lead a new £42.8million UK-wide study following the lives of 30,000 children born in 2026, with the aim of providing evidence to improve the lives of future generations.

Generation New Era will collect data at two key developmental stages, when children are between nine and 11 months and again between three and four years, to provide vital insights before children enter formal education.

Researchers will examine physical, mental and social development, and explore how technological, environmental and social changes affect early childhood experiences.

The plan is to track these children and their families throughout their lives in what will be the first new UK-wide longitudinal birth cohort study in 25 years.

Generation New Era will be led jointly by co-directors Prof Pasco Fearon, of the University of Cambridge, and Prof Alissa Goodman and Prof Lisa Calderwood, of UCL.

Prof Fearon, director of the Centre for Child, Adolescent and Family Research at 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.

“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.”

Funded by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the study will create a comprehensive picture of early childhood development in all four nations of the UK with senior academics based at the universities of Swansea, Ulster, and Edinburgh serving as the study's leads in their countries.

More than 60,000 children and their families will be invited to take part from summer 2026, with the aim of recruiting 30,000. There will be a focus on recruiting fathers as well as mothers and including groups previously underrepresented in population research..

The findings will inform policy development across government departments.

Prof Goodman, from the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies, said: “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.

“As the government works to give every child the best start in life, the study can help shape vital policies and services for babies and parents across the UK. Thanks to the commitment of our participants, we can support the health and development of this generation – and help future generations thrive.”

As well as providing insight into lives shaped by modern times, the study could help unlock genetic links to disease as both parents and babies will be asked for saliva samples so their genetic data can be analysed.

Researchers also plan to link information provided by families to health and education records.

Prof Fearon said the data will create a “lasting resource for the whole of UK and global science”.

“It’s designed in such a way that it can answer loads of different questions, it’s not focusing on specific ones,” he explained.

Information on the economy, parental employment, childcare uptake, children’s health and well-being, their early language skills and school readiness will be gathered by the study as the study aims to understand outcomes for children and families.

Prof Fearon added: “There’s a huge interest in the potential for genetic data to really illuminate the causes of health conditions that wouldn’t have been possible before, and having that data from the very beginning of the study is not totally unique globally, but we will be one of the first nationally representative birth cohorts to have genotyping in right at the beginning. And that’s going to be really powerful.

“A lot of people are talking about screen time and digital media and social media, that’s a huge issue, and it’s moved so much since 2000 – there really aren’t nationally representative UK-wide studies that allow us to get a fix on that properly.

“There’s a lot of interest in trying to understand the circumstances and outcomes and some of the causal factors involved in disability and special educational needs, so that’s also going to be a really important area of focus.

“And trying to get a handle on the rising rates of mental health conditions in children and young people is also going to be, I think, a very high priority for the study.”

Generation New Era is part of a tradition of research council-funded UK longitudinal birth cohort studies that have followed the lives of tens of thousands of people over the past eight decades.

ESRC executive chair Stian Westlake said: “The evidence this study produces can underpin policy that makes the UK a happier, healthier and fairer place, improving lives and livelihoods. It is an investment in the future that we are proud to make.”