UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced the launch of a new UK-wide birth cohort study. Generation New Era will study 30,000 children born in 2026, creating a comprehensive picture of early childhood across the four nations of the UK.
De-identified research data from Generation New Era will be deposited with the UK Data Service and securely made available to the research community. As the principal repository for economic, population and social research data in the UK, we are excited about the potential for this data to help improve the lives of future generations.
Groundbreaking research
Generation New Era is funded by UKRI’s Infrastructure Fund and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It will be led by Professor Alissa Goodman (UCL, Centre for Longitudinal Studies), Professor Lisa Calderwood (UCL, Centre for Longitudinal Studies) and Professor Pasco Fearon (University of Cambridge).
The study will track children’s physical, mental and social development, as well as how technological, environmental and social changes affect early childhood experiences. The first data will be collected when children in the cohort are 9 to 11 months old, and again when they are 3 to 4 years old. The plan is to then track these children and their families throughout their lives, producing an invaluable resource for both research and policy development.
Steve McEachern, Director of the UK Data Service, said: “Generation New Era will give researchers and policymakers an unprecedented level of insight into early childhood across the UK. We know from previous birth cohort studies just how powerful these studies can be in helping to improve people’s lives and we’re excited about the prospect of bringing data from this new resource to our users.”
UK Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study
Generation New Era is built on the success of an earlier study, the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study. This was launched in 2023 with the aim of testing the feasibility of sampling and recruitment for Generation New Era.
Data from this study is now available via the UK Data Service. Most of the data is available under an end user licence agreement, with selected sensitive data available under secure access arrangements. You can read more about the data release and the study at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies.