Hatfield Futures Project

In 2050, today’s high school students will be at the height of their careers and family lives. What future Oregon will they be living in? How can we support students in their efforts to shape a resilient and prosperous future Oregon?

The Hatfield Futures Project aims to engage students in generating innovative policy proposals for our most important societal, environmental, and economic issues. Our vision is to connect students across the state of Oregon as they collaborate in teams to present forward-thinking ideas at Portland State University in spring 2023 to community leaders, elected officials, and Portland State University faculty.

Students will build on the ideas that PSU faculty lay out in Oregon 2050 to develop their policy proposals. Oregon 2050 is an effort to be visionary and collaborate across traditional silos and outside of the constraints of planning as it has been constrained by practice and law, for a more environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and fiscally resilient future. 

Oregon 2050 offers “big ideas” about how our state will welcome a projected more than one million new residents (relative to the population in 2020), and how we can face challenges and uncertainties about the future, such as the impacts of climate change, ongoing social inequities, and major changes in technology and to the economy. 

Oregon's Kitchen Table and PSU's College of Urban and Public Affairs partnered to launch the Hatfield Futures Project in 2022-2023.  

Teams presented their policy ideas to a panel of judges at Portland State University on April 22, 2023. Learn about the Hatfield Futures Showcase here. 

Learn about the Hatfield Futures Project Teams here. 

This project is named for Senator Mark O. Hatfield.  Senator Hatfield represented Oregon in the US Senate for 30 years in addition to serving as Governor of Oregon, Oregon Secretary State, Oregon State Representative and Senator.  Senator Hatfield believed strongly that Oregonians need to be engaged citizens if Oregon’s commitment to good government and active participation were to be fulfilled. 

"Our problem is not the lack of knowing; it is the lack of doing. Most people know far more than they think they do."

- Senator Mark O. Hatfield.

Thank you to our Hatfield Futures Project Sponsors for helping to launch this effort!