“The ultimate objective should always be to provide a good life and wellbeing to all people”
Dr Péter Benczúr is a scientific officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), where he is one of the coordinators of the transversal work on ‘sustainable and inclusive wellbeing’ (SIWB). He has been involved in the development of the SIWB framework, which aims to go beyond GDP and measure current and future wellbeing in the EU.
Why are social sciences and humanities (SSH) needed to tackle grand societal challenges and to secure Europe’s competitiveness?
Péter Benczúr: While economics and economic prosperity are clearly important, thinking only in terms of production and technology is not sufficient. We need to think of society at large. We need to consider who are the beneficiaries of these productions. The ultimate objective should always be to provide a good life and wellbeing to all people – within planetary boundaries. To achieve this, we need a broader perspective. All people – from all backgrounds and all generations – need to be factored in. That falls beyond economics and technology.
Would you say that SSH’s involvement in designing policies and key initiatives is important?
Péter Benczúr: That is an easy yes. When designing policies, we need to know how these policies will be implemented and how they will shape people’s lives. We need to consider this, because people might act differently than anticipated and derail the policies. We need to know how people react to and participate in initiatives. There is a strong social element to this issue. Policies don’t exist in a vacuum.
What is the ‘Sustainable and Inclusive Wellbeing (SIWB) framework’? Why was it initiated and what are its main goals?
Péter Benczúr: Sustainable and inclusive wellbeing means trying to deliver wellbeing to all people of the current and future generations as well as the planet. The basic idea is to go beyond GDP and measure other aspects than economic growth.
The SIWB framework was officially announced in 2023. Its goal is to compare the level of wellbeing among Member States and between the EU and other countries in the world. Our objective is to compare countries’ ability to deliver wellbeing in a fair and sustainable way. The framework has two main tracks: the first track collects indicators and does the synthesis of various EU measuring frameworks that often overlap; the second track aims to show how countries are doing in the EU and globally.
How can progress be measured beyond GDP? What indicators can we use to provide a more holistic view of wellbeing?
Péter Benczúr: There are many aspects we can look at. There is the way we are influencing the future, the resources we set aside, and the capacity to deal with future challenges. When it comes to current wellbeing, we can consider: time use, work-life balance, the safety of our environment, governance, social cohesion, the level of poverty, housing affordability, education and health levels, life expectancy, and even subjective life satisfaction.
As I’m listing this, you can see that there are far too many indicators. At the SIWB framework, we came up with a list of 50 indicators of wellbeing, but there is a quest for a single number, such as the one expressed by GDP. The goal is to have the same type of framework as GDP but focused on wellbeing. That is the wish. GDP holds a lot of power because it is one single number that can be compared and shared. We need to design a new approach and find a measurement tool that captures wellbeing. This would also align with the ongoing work of the UN High-Level Expert Group on beyond GDP.
How can the SIWB framework help measure current and future wellbeing in the EU and better inform policy decisions for a prosperous EU?
Péter Benczúr: We are now actively looking for entry points toward more policy applications, but we are still at the very start. We believe that the common list of indicators could be a good starting point for considering the impact of policies. Such a list could be applied during the design phase of new policies, but also for monitoring of existing policies. It could also be considered for the design of the next Multiannual Financial Framework. The list could serve as a good consensus for checking if the programme is delivering on its promise – which ultimately is to deliver human wellbeing. SIWB could help with this and help design more inclusive and sustainable policies.