When more than 30 high-powered thinkers in the world of education and workforce development gathered for two days at Stanford in late October, they aimed to flip the usual academic conference on its head. Rather than absorbing presentations about research already accomplished, they rolled up their sleeves and began framing an ambitious, year-long conversation about how to revamp education to support Americans’ steadily lengthening lifespans.

The convening was the kick-off of the Stanford Center on Longevity’s new Futures Project, in which Fellows are appointed with a wide variety of academic, business, and policy perspectives. They will focus as a group on a year-long theme to brainstorm how society can adapt to meet the needs of longer lives. The topics will draw from SCL’s New Map of Life, a blueprint for how longer lives can be made healthier and happier, with benefits distributed more equitably across the population.

This year’s conversation, broadly focused on education and learning, aims to outline essential questions about how to prepare workers and employers to face challenges created by the need for the continual renewal of skills over a worker’s lifetime and multiple career transitions. The meeting was also supported by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), a Stanford cross-disciplinary incubator that facilitates collaborations between academia, policy, industry, civil society, and government.

Stanford Education professor Mitchell Stevens, who is a co-director at SCL and is guiding this year’s project, said people will need to work longer, and there’s also “no shortage of evidence that massive technological changes are transforming the character of work.” He cited a McKinsey Global Institute estimate that up to 30 percent of hours currently worked by humans in the United States could be automated by 2030, necessitating some 12 million occupational transitions.

That means a lot of skills upgrading and mid-career and late-career education – in contrast to the 20^th century model of front-loading education and career training in the first quarter of people’s lives. Stevens said he expects the near future will involve a lot of investment, entrepreneurial activity, and policy leadership in the area of lifelong education and training. To meet the challenges, it is important to build a coalition among government agencies, educational providers, employers, businesses, and philanthropies.

The first task the Futures Fellows face is to outline the topics they will discuss over the course of the academic year. Some of the immediate issues raised at the convening include:

• How should the cost of enabling lifelong skill development be allocated among workers, employers, and government?
  • The considerations must include the community’s responsibilities, not just those of individuals.
  • What is the role and responsibility of employers, and how can they be enticed to invest more? What is the argument that can be framed to persuade them?
• How are business models useful and what concerns might they raise?
  • It is important to safeguard consumers and civil society as education and workforce training become more privatized.
  • It is important to recognize that the purpose of education is not just workforce training, but also civic engagement and overall flourishing in life.
• How can the nation integrate programs that historically have been contained in separate silos, labelled either higher education or workforce development?
  • How can higher education leaders be engaged?
• How can policies be inclusive and ensure that everyone who needs retraining has access to it?
  • It is important to provide equitable access for low-wage workers, who may experience a lack of discretionary time.
  • A caregiving infrastructure is essential to allow workers to take advantage of retraining and educational opportunities.
• How will employers and policymakers know what they need to know to ensure success?
  • What kind of data should be collected, and what kinds of data systems would help move the project forward?
  • What, exactly, is meant by skills? How are they measured?
• How can we include the entire life course?
  • Evidence shows the importance of early childhood education on later life.
  • How can we make mid-life and later-life transitions easier and more fluid?

The next step for this Futures cohort will be to finalize and publish a white paper outlining the group’s initial ideas. The document is designed around context and questions, and is meant to be thought-provoking rather than to make recommendations, said Stevens.

The ultimate agenda for the Futures Project is to establish a research or impact agenda for going forward. It is no accident that the project was set to convene during an election year, when the United States will launch a new Presidential administration.

The October gathering was only the beginning. The group will meet virtually twice a month to establish a collective vision and create a network of people who are working toward this vision. By the year’s end, participants will launch individual or collaborative projects.

“SCL is a translational research center. We are action oriented and we are always driving to outcomes,” said SCL Associate Director Martha Deevy. “We want to drive action, not merely report on what’s already been accomplished.”

“We want things to get built, but they don’t have to get built in this zip code in any particular organization,” said Stevens, underscoring that Stanford resources are available to help and support the Fellows.

Additionally, a key part of the project is to create a communication network among stakeholders who might not otherwise be aware of their related work. “The group is intentionally very diverse, with many different backgrounds, expertise, and professional affiliations represented,” said Marie Conley-Smith, SCL’s Director of Programs.

“It’s a multi-stakeholder environment and a multi-stakeholder problem set,” agreed Stevens. “The Fellows have been tasked with participating in a conversation that’s centered at Stanford, but also carrying that conversation out into the world. We want to plant seeds for a national conversation.”

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Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL) is dedicated to reshaping the way we live longer lives. We aim to accelerate the application of scientific breakthroughs, technological innovations, and cultural shifts to ensure that a century-long lifespan is both healthy and fulfilling. Our mission is not about addressing old age in isolation, but about nurturing a lifetime of well-being—from early education and habits to multigenerational connections and lifelong purpose. By collaborating with Stanford faculty, industry leaders, cultural influencers, and policymakers, we are redesigning the traditional life course to embrace new norms that support longer, more vibrant lives. Our goal is to create a future where the promise of longevity benefits both individuals and society.

The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University is a place where great minds confront the critical issues of our time, where boundaries and assumptions are challenged, where cross-disciplinary thinking is the norm, where extraordinary collaborations become possible, and where innovative ideas are in pursuit of intellectual breakthroughs that can shape our world.

CASBS brings together deep thinkers from diverse disciplines and communities to advance understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. A leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, CASBS facilitates collaborations across academia, policy, industry, civil society, and government to collectively design a better future. casbs.stanford.edu