The BAT Freizeit-Forschungsinstitut (BAT Leisure Research Institute) was founded in 1979, at a time of social upheaval which reached its climax in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall.  1979 was the year of NATO’s Double-Track Decision.  Socialism still existed as a “real concept” and the Polish trade union Solidarnosc (Solidarity) was a banned organisation.  The GDR was just celebrating its 30th anniversary.  Ayatollah Khomeini had just returned to Iran.  In 1979 AIDS was seen for the first time in the USA.  The great ecological catastrophe of Chernobyl was still seven years in the future, and “forest dieback”, “the greenhouse effect” and “climate change” were unknown concepts.  There were still no “Greens” in the German parliament.  The age was characterised by oil crises, changes in society’s values, microelectronics and demonstrations against nuclear power stations. 

For its part, the research institute was founded with the declared aim of producing above all “qualitative research”.  The Institute’s work focused on academic research and the provision of information about the findings of this, which were made accessible to a broad public.  Since then the institute founded by British American Tobacco has made a name for itself in business and the academic world, politics and the media which is based on two principles: competence and continuity.

All of the past 30 years have been influenced by an unparalleled growth in prosperity that has reached – perhaps even passed – its climax at the beginning of the 21st century.  The century of shorter working hours has ended.  A paradigm shift is being heralded: the concepts of a working society and a society where there is full employment are becoming questionable.  And the leisure- and consumption-related ideals of an affluent and fun-loving society are increasingly giving way to disenchantment based on reality.

The changes in structures and values in the whole western world were also an opportunity to reflect more on the quality of life rather than about living standards and to repeat the questions of what the future holds and the meaning of life.  In the discussions of all the problems of the way in which society is developing, the studies also always reflected a positive attitude, highlighted practicable approaches to solutions and gave hope for the future.

The Foundation – established in 2007 – remains committed to this maxim, but its vision has now also broadened to include a variety of questions and problems of society relating to economics, ecology and social cohesion.  The Foundation has taken on the role of advocate for vision and responsibility.  That is its declared duty.  And it also does not shy away from reminding the decision-makers in society of their duty of acceptance.  After all, we need to shape the future actively and aggressively and not only come to terms with it passively and reactively.  The future is what we make it.

With the transformation of the Freizeit-Forschungsinstitut into the Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen (Foundation for Future Studies), British American Tobacco has acted as initiator, founder and benefactor in widening our vision of several different futures rather than a single future – futures between which we can choose and which we can also shape.  Each time we set a particular course today, this opens up a new view of the future.  The Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen helps us to be more certain about the future and tries to give answers to Immanuel Kant’s famous questions: “What can we know?  What should we do?  What may we hope?”  As a result, “future” can also be another way of saying “hope”.