Wellbeing, inclusion, sustainability and the economy

Project Information

WISE Horizons

Grant agreement ID: 101095219

DOI

10.3030/101095219

EC signature date 16 December 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 30 April 2027

Funded under

• Culture, creativity and inclusive society

Total cost

€ 2 780 143,75

EU contribution

€ 2 780 143,75

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WISE Horizons (Wellbeing, inclusion, sustainability and the economy)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Since the end of the second world war, societies have relied on an economic growth as the central narrative and policy goal. While this has brought certain benefits, the social and ecological crises that we are currently facing, have stimulated the general feeling that society needs to be looking "Beyond-Growth". This idea has been bolstered by decades of scientific and policy initiatives which have warned against the focus on economic growth and have also suggested alternative development models. Despite the 50 years of innovations in the field of Beyond-Growth theories, its uptake in public policy or in societal narratives is minor. This project will be making a contribution by enhancing the to impact of Beyond-Growth in governance and policy.

Specifically, the project aims to improve the public debate and create a stronger post-growth community. The project also has specific aims in terms of understanding and proposing policies that reduce inequities in society and raising the voices of groups that are negatively affected by the shift to post-growth society.
These objectives will be achieved by:
1) Creating a new theoretical framework by synthesizing current post growth initiatives
2) Developing a vision of 2050 using qualitatively co-created scenarios
3) Enhancing the scientific understanding of trade-offs and synergies of a post-growth development by developing historical analysis and forward looking policy models

These results are geared at creating a more coherent message and thereby strengthening the narrative from the Beyond-Growth community. The current community is too heterogeneous to effective. Methodologies and narratives lack coherence and harmonization. The WISE Horizons theoretical framework is therefore based on a synthesis of many of the major Beyond-Growth theories and initiatives. The framework is based on wellbeing, inclusion and sustainability (WISE) which is based on the Brundtland report and the Sitglitz-Sen-Fittoussi report. These 3 dimensions of progress are increasingly being used by the major academics and institutes (UN, OECD and EC) in this field.

The theoretical foundation (1) will be used to co-create the vision of the future (2) also the quantitative analysis (3). For the latter we are talking about (a historical analysis, 9 partial models and 2 integrated models). To achieve these objectives, interdisciplinarity is key, as the underling concepts of wellbeing, inclusion and sustainability requires insights from various social and natural sciences.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

This is the first annual report of the project. The project has made significant progress in synthesizing the existing post-growth literature. Three reviews were published related to metrics, policies and models which were aimed at providing input to the theoretical framework. The theoretical framework (D1.4) which builds on these reviews, was completed at the end of February 2024. For each of the reviews and the theoretical framework, we adopted the WISE framework where we looked the three dimensions of progress: wellbeing, distribution of wellbeing (inclusion) and future wellbeing (sustainability). The theoretical framework is work-in-progress. At the end of the project, when we publish a book we will revisit the theoretical framework. It will be refined based on the insights that we have gained in all the other parts of the project and the various co-creation labs and collaborations with the “Sister” projects (the other Beyond-Growth projects funded by the Horizon Europe funds).

The current scientific work has benefited from the co-creation activities such as the the Future Lab (September 2023, Brussels) and the Just Transition Lab (November 2023, Brussels). Noteworthy efforts were made in both labs to ensure diverse representation among stakeholders, taking into account factors such as country of origin, gender, and professional expertise. The Just Transition Lab, in particular, provided a platform for individuals adversely affected by transitions and organisations working with these constituencies, including but not limited to women, low-income individuals, and Indigenous peoples, to offer invaluable insights into some of the thematic models under development by the WISE Horizons team through co-creative activities.

Finally, two significant domains of the quantitative analysis have made progress (although nothing is finalised):
- Work has started on the Global Report which will provide a historical analysis, based on global data for at least 130-150 countries and deepdives for Europe, Africa, China and the US. For this and other purposes, the WISE database has been developed, which provides a repository of the most important Beyond-GDP indexes and indicators. These data are usually spread all over the world, but this database makes it easier for our consortium but others as well, to do research in this domain. For the moment, the data is available through https://beyond-gdp.world/wise-database/wise-database
- Work on many of the nine thematic (partial) models has started. These models will start to be made public in 2025 onwards.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

There are basically four main deliverables which are already proving to be very impactful.
1) Review of metrics. This report and the visualization (https://beyond-gdp.world/wise-database/wise-metrics) is already contributing to the improvement of the public and research debate on Beyond-GDP because it provides so much clarity on the Beyond-GDP metrics space. the review was used by inform the discussion of two EC projects (The WG on Sustainable and Inclusive Wellbeing (JRC) and the GDP+3)). It was also used in the discussions of the UN Network of Economic Statisticians. This review will also be used in the WP1 of the MERGE project.
2) Review of models. This report has been used by other modelling groups (especially the ToBe project) as input to their own projects. It will also be used in the WP1 of the MERGE project.
3) Review of Policies. This is the most comprehensive overview of global governance and policy related to wellbeing, inclusion and sustainability. It will be used in the WP1 of the MERGE project.
4) Theoretical Framework. This report, finalized in February 2024, will be used in MERGE project.

On the basis of all of the above results, the coordinator of the WISE Horizons was asked by DG-RTD to be the penholder of an advocacy paper. This report aims is to provide guidance to the next Commission on how to introduce beyond-growth thinking in European governance and policy.

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