21st Century Trust

As globalization transforms how we relate to one another across national and professional boundaries, it is essential that future decision takers and opinion leaders from all walks of life have the opportunity to learn from one another and to test their ideas in an international and inter-disciplinary context. The Trust brings together the rising generation of leaders worldwide, now aged under 40, from government, business, NGOs, academe, the media and other sectors. Its conferences provide a forum where these exceptional individuals, who otherwise would not have a chance to meet, identify the major challenges and opportunities facing them and the world in the decades ahead.

The Trust ensures that, as well as being diverse, with upwards of a dozen nationalities and a wide range of professional backgrounds represented at any one event, its conferences are small, with 25 participants, and generally a week long. This facilitates the full involvement of all those present in open, creative thinking, informal, off-the-record discussion, and the formation of lasting relationships which will allow understanding and debates to continue long after the conference has concluded.

The Senior Fellows who lead each conference are among the most eminent in their fields. They have included Michael Ignatieff, Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard (Senior Fellow for Media Power and Responsibility); Heizo Takenaka, Japanese Minister for Economic Policy (Asia-Pacific Economic and Security Scenarios for 2020); Dominique Möisi, Institut Français des Relations Internationales, Paris (Globalization: Challenges and Discontents); Ronald Dworkin, New York University and University College London (Genetics, Identity and Justice); the late Edward Said (Culture and Imperialism); Ambassador Olara Otunnu, United Nations, New York (Human Rights in International Relations); and Sir Marrack Goulding, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General (The International Community and its Role in Preventing, Managing and Resolving Conflict).

Alongside the Senior Fellow, guest speakers make presentations. A number of papers by these leading experts are available here. Participants are not required to deliver papers but have the opportunity to give talks, and the format includes discussion in plenary and small groups, scenario building, and simulations. Informed general interest in the subject is as important as professional expertise. Conferences are in English.

Conference participants are invited to join the Trust Fellowship, a unique global network of 1,100 from 100 countries. An electronic journal and directory keep Fellows in touch, and weekend seminars take place in various parts of the world to renew and extend the links and debates initiated at the main conferences.

The Trust was founded in 1986. It has no political affiliation and welcomes participants from across the democratic political spectrum, a diversity also present among our trustees and senior advisers. The Trust's limited funds are restricted to the pursuit of its own programme, and it is not in a position to give grants to individuals or other organizations.