2026 to 2047

The programme

A twenty-one year horizon, set deliberately. The systems worth studying took decades to build, and the ones worth adapting will take decades to hold. Anything shorter would only capture the launch.

2026BuildNow
Build the platform and the network
The year with no field research in it. Everything built now exists so that the research, when it starts, can be published quickly, cited properly and compared across countries.
- Launch circularjourney.org with the research framework published in full.
- Set the 22-point framework applied to every country.
- Open the Atlas structure, including the compulsory limitations sections.
- Begin outreach to prospective host organizations for the 2027 missions.
- Publish the source register and the evidence-labelling rules.
2027Explore
First field missions
Southeast Asia first: Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Five countries where the same problems are being solved under very different constraints.
2028Adapt
Europe, East Asia, and the India question
Widen the evidence base, then turn to the harder problem: working out honestly what Indian conditions would demand of any model worth importing.
2029Convene
A summit in India, proposed
Bring the network together in one place. The point is not the event; it is that by 2029 there should be something worth convening about. Proposed rather than fixed: it depends on the research, the partners and the funding, and the year may move.
2030Scale
Extend what held
Pilots that worked are extended; pilots that did not are written up and closed. Both outcomes are published, because a body of evidence that only records successes is not evidence.
2035Extend
A standing body of evidence
By the mid-2030s the Atlas should be useful to someone who has never heard of Circular Journey: a practitioner looking up how a system works, and what it costs.
2047Contribute
Twenty-one years of public evidence
India marks a centenary year with a stated national vision. Circular Journey is independent of that programme. What it can offer by then is a long, honest record of what was tried, what worked, and what did not.