UCL Town Meeting on Human Wellbeing

UCL staff are invited to a Town Meeting on: 'What is wellbeing and how can we measure it?' on 17 February 2010.

The meeting will be held at 5.30pm in Roberts Lecture Theatre GO6, to be followed by a reception in the foyer.

The meeting, hosted by UCL's Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing, will consider how we might establish a UCL definition of wellbeing, what is important for wellbeing, and identify some key themes and aspects of research relating to wellbeing.

UCL President and Provost Professor Malcolm Grant will give the opening address and the meeting will feature a number of short presentations on different perspectives on wellbeing, followed by a panel and audience discussion chaired by Professor Nick Tyler (UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering).

The speakers joining Professor Tyler will be:

• Peter Antonioni (UCL Management Science & Innovation)
• Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience)
• Professor Nick Chater (UCL Cognitive, Perceptual & Brain Sciences)
• Professor Steffen Huck (UCL Economics)
• Professor Geraint Rees (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience)
• Professor Jane Rendell (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture).

Consideration of wellbeing - what constitutes it and how to achieve it - is particularly timely at present in the context of the global economic crisis and the debate over how to achieve recovery and what recovery should look like. This includes a consideration of the wellbeing of society that is more sophisticated than simply measuring GDP: how to ensure that a prosperous society translates into a society with a strong sense of wellbeing will be one of the key challenges in the coming months and years.

UCL is well placed, with our breadth of expertise and research activity, to address this challenge of wellbeing and to make a real contribution to current and future debate.