About this Website

www.Beyond-GDP.world is aimed at policy makers, journalists, scientists and members of the general public that are interested in Beyond-GDP.

The website is hosted by the Institute for Environmental Sciences Leiden (CML) of Leiden University, The Netherlands. “Beyond-GDP” refers to the goal of defining better measures of social progress than the current dominant indicator, Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Many Beyond-GDP metrics have been suggested in the last five decades. Famous examples include the Human Development Index (HDI), Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Rather than referring to Beyond-GDP, this website uses Wellbeing, Inclusion and Sustainability (WISE) because it makes clear what we do want to measure rather than what we do not. 

This website aims to do three things:

  1. Answer basic questions related to Beyond-GDP (“Beyond-GDP Basics”)
  2. Collate Beyond-GDP/WISE data from the many international databases (“WISE Database”)
  3. Publish data-driven articles which provide a new perspective on societal progress (“WISE Insights”)

The WISE Database is a repository of Beyond-GDP indexes and indicators. The WISE Database has been under development since 2020 when a group of “Citizen Scientists” of the Wellbeing Economic Alliance (WEAll) started collecting data on various Beyond-GDP metrics after the publication of a WEAll briefing paper. The work of the Citizens Science project was also supported by the United Nations University (UNU) WISE Transformation Initiative.   

The main current source of funding is the WISE Horizons project, which is a Horizon Europe Research & Innovation Action (GA 101095219) funded by the European Commission. The project started on January 1st 2023. The WISE Horizons consortium members are the Institute of Environmental Sciences, ZOE Institute for Future-fit Economies, Paris School of Economics, The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) at the Universities of Surrey, University of York, SINTEF, the Centre for Applied Research in Botswana and Tsinghua University. We also encourage you to sign up for WISE Horizons Network updates.

The current iteration of the WISE database is also supported by Chinese Scientific Council (CSC). We would like to express our gratitude for all the financial and in-kind support from all our sponsors, past and present.