Future Leaders Survey 2007/08

Date: 
30 Jan 2008

This page is no longer being updated. Please click here for more information on the Future Leaders Survey.

What do applicants to universities and colleges in the UK in 2007 think about the future?

Where do they expect their happiness to come from?

What do they think the world will be like when they are mid-career?

What are the big challenges facing humanity, and who do they expect action from?

When Forum for the Future and UCAS embarked on the second Future Leaders Survey, it was with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Today’s university entrants truly have the hand of history on their shoulders: the first generation to face seemingly intractable global environmental problems right at the beginning of their careers, and the last with a chance to solve them.

As the results of this year’s survey show, they feel this burden, and struggle to feel optimistic about the future – whether in saving the rainforests, achieving peace or ending famine.

But they haven’t given up, and their expectations are very high. As future leaders they know we need action from leaders of today, in business, government, the media and beyond. They also see a much greater role for coercion – for example banning 4x4s in city centres and taxing aviation – than our current culture of voluntarism would suggest.

As you’d expect, fun is still pretty high on their agenda, and like students of any generation they want to see the world, socialise with their friends, and benefit from some of the good things in life. For the world’s billion teenagers, reconciling this lifestyle with the reality of environmental limits is what sustainable development is all about, and is now the defining challenge for leadership both present and future.

The Future Leaders Survey 2007/08 was made possible by sponsorship from Friends Provident.

Download the 2007/08 Future Leaders Survey here

Download the supporting document on selected regional differences

Read The Daily Telegraph feature here

Read Jonathon Porritt's blog entry

Check out Ben Tuxworth's article in Green Futures

You can also read on online version of the report by browsing the links in the menu on the left-hand side.

Project Report summary: 

Following the success of the first Future Leaders Survey in 2006/07, we asked every applicant to higher education in the UK in 2007 to set out their views on these and a range of other questions. More than 25,000 of them responded. This report summarises what they told us.

The survey paints a picture of a generation that is intensely aware of the big challenges facing the planet and eager to see broader social and political change, but which is less willing to adapt individual personal behaviour.

The survey results do, however, begin to highlight ways through this paradox. Respondents would like to see tougher action by government, business playing a positive role, and less of an obsession with material affluence.

This report is important reading for those who want to understand how this generation will shape – and can be enabled to shape – a better future.