Artificial intelligence
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Global youth research initiative · 2026
The 100-Year Life Report
01
Executive
Summary
Today's young people may become the first generation in history for whom living to 100 is commonplace.
Yet while governments, businesses, researchers, and policymakers are increasingly discussing the implications of longer lives, rapid technological change, demographic shifts, climate uncertainty, and evolving careers, one group is rarely asked a simple question:
“What kind of future do young people actually want?”
The 100-Year Life Report seeks to answer this question.
Led by LSE Generate and Pine Crest School in partnership with schools around the world, this ambitious social science research initiative will gather and analyse the hopes, fears, aspirations, frustrations, and priorities of secondary school students across multiple countries and cultures.
The report will explore how young people imagine their futures, what challenges concern them most, what opportunities excite them, what systems they believe need to change, and what they think adults are missing about the future.
Through surveys, interviews, focus groups, systems mapping workshops, and collaborative research activities, students will become active contributors to one of the first global studies exploring the future through the eyes of the next generation.
The findings will be analysed and synthesised by a multidisciplinary team of LSE academics, LSE students, participating school students, and practitioners, combining rigorous social science methodologies with meaningful youth participation.
The result will be a unique evidence base that informs educators, policymakers, employers, philanthropists, and society about how the next generation sees the world they are inheriting—and the world they wish to build.
02
Why This
Matters
The world is changing. Who gets to shape it?
Humanity is entering a period of profound transition.
Climate change
is reshaping economies and societies.
Longer lives
People are living longer than ever before.
Evolving careers
Traditional career paths are being disrupted.
Questions around wellbeing, belonging, trust, and social cohesion are becoming increasingly important. At the same time, today's young people will live through these transformations more directly than any previous generation.
Despite this, conversations about the future are often conducted without their voices.
The 100-Year Life Report seeks to place young people at the centre of that conversation.
Not as passive subjects of research, but as active participants in shaping our understanding of the future.
03
Research
Objectives
Looking forward
The study
aims to:
10years
25years
50years
100years
- 01
Understand how young people envision their lives over the next 10, 25, 50 and 100 years.
- 02
Explore the hopes, fears, frustrations, and aspirations shaping their worldviews.
- 03
Examine attitudes towards education, work, technology, health, longevity, climate, inequality, democracy, and community.
- 04
Identify similarities and differences across countries, cultures, educational settings, and age groups.
- 05
Understand what young people believe needs to change to create a better future.
- 06
Generate actionable insights for educators, policymakers, employers, and institutions.
- 07
Create a global platform for youth voice and systems-level thinking.
The next century starts here
Your future should have your voice in it.
Study results will be presented at World Economic Forum Davos Summit in 2027
10 minutes