The Post GDP World: Towards Sustainable Global Prosperity - an MOOC

The MOOC will be led by Director of IGP Professor Henrietta Moore and Senior Lecturer Dr Tuukka Toivonen. The MOOC will be designed with the support of UCL's Office of the Vice Provost (Education and Student Affairs), who have awarded funding to a select few MOOCs proposed by UCL departments.

Students will trace the historical rise of GDP as a focal indicator of progress and national strength in the 20th century. They will then study novel pathways to global prosperity as well as alternative indicators, including the Prosperity Index that is being developed at IGP in collaboration with a set of external partners. The final session of the course engages with tangible prototypes and practices, from the idea of the ‘circular economy’ all the way to transparent supply chains, that suggest radically different approaches to production and consumption.

By the end of this ambitious and thoroughly global course, students will have understood the history and profound significance of GDP as an indicator and (partly) prevailing worldview.

The Post GDP World will be available on the FutureLearn platform.

Image credit: David Hoffmann, Lensational