The BAT Leisure Research Institute was founded in 1979, at the dawn of an era of extensive change. It was the year of the NATO double-track decision and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The GDR celebrated its 30th birthday and the Idea of a “real socialism” was still very much alive. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran. The period was characterised by a change in values – by oil crises and demonstrations against nuclear power. While the concepts of "forest dieback", "greenhouse effect" and "climate change" were increasingly finding their way into social conversation – and the Greens had their first members elected to the Bundestag in Germany – microelectronics became part of everyday life. AIDS made it into the media for the first time. The foundation of the Polish union Solidarnosc (Solidarity) was a first indication of the imminent collapse behind the iron curtain, which would culminate in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The Research Institute was founded at that time with the stated intention of primarily carrying out "qualitative research". The focus of the Institute's work was to carry out scientific research and to make the findings of that research accessible to the wider public. Since then, the Institute established by British American Tobacco has made a name for itself in economics and science, politics and the media, 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”.