What is the Global Happiness Council?

The Global Happiness Council (GHC) is a new global network of leading academic specialists in happiness and key practitioners in areas ranging from psychology, economics, urban planning, civil society, business and government. The GHC identifies best practices at the national and local levels to encourage advancement of the causes of happiness and well-being.

Council members oversee the work of six thematic groups (education, workplace, personal happiness, public health, city design and management) who each produce a chapter of policy recommendations in the Global Happiness Policy Report, published annually and presented at the World Government Summit (WGS) in support the Global Dialogue for Happiness. This report provides evidence and policy advice to participating governments on best practices to promote happiness and well-being.

The work of the Council will be complementary to the World Happiness Reports and other research on the measurement and explanation of happiness. The aim of the GHC is to survey and share best practice policies drawn from the research literature and government experiences around the globe.

Council Members

Jeffrey Sachs
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
John F. Helliwell
Richard Layard
Lara B. Aknin
Ozge Karadag
Radhika Iyengar
Sharon Paculor
Stefano Quintarelli
Shun Wang
Naoko Yamamoto

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve

Workplace Chair

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is a behavioural economist and professor at the University of Oxford. The underlying theme throughout his research is the study of human wellbeing and this has led to new insights in the relationship between happiness and income, economic growth, and inequality. His research was selected among “The Management Ideas that Mattered Most in 2016” by Harvard Business Review. Jan is an associate editor of the World Happiness Report and sits on the Global Happiness Council and chairs its workplace wellbeing committee. Prior to joining Oxford, he was on the faculty at University College London and INSEAD. Jan obtained his PhD from the LSE and was a Fulbright scholar at Harvard University. He is a frequent advisor to governments and corporations including as a research advisor to the Gallup Organization and he works with startups such as Psychological Technologies and Butterfly.ai. His research and commentary regularly feature in the media, including in The Economist, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and on the BBC. He is a frequent speaker at conferences including at PopTech and TEDx.

Jeffrey Sachs

Director of the Global Happiness Council

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He has twice been named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, “probably the most important economist in the world,” and by Time Magazine “the world’s best known economist.” A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade. Professor Sachs served as the Director of the Earth Institute from 2002 to 2016. He was appointed University Professor at Columbia University in 2016, and also serves as Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.

He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals, and previously advised both UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Sustainable Development Goals and Millennium Development Goals and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. Sachs is Director of both the Center for Sustainable Development, and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network under the auspices of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

John F. Helliwell

Synthesis Report Chair

John F. Helliwell, of the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, and a long-time Research Associate of the NBER, is Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and was Co-Director of CIFAR’s program on ‘Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being’, 2005-2017. His books include Globalization and Well-Being (2002), Well-Being for Public Policy (OUP, with Diener, Lucas and Schimmack, 2009), International Differences in Well-Being (OUP, edited with Diener and Kahneman, 2010), and six editions, 2012-2018, of the World Happiness Report (edited with Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs). He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Canadian Economics Association, and Officer of the Order of Canada.

Further information at: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/jhelliwell/

Lara B. Aknin

Dr. Lara Aknin is a Distinguished Associate Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, former Fellow with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and a co-editor of the World Happiness Report. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Aknin’s research focuses on the antecedents and consequences of happiness and prosocial behaviour. Most of her work examines how generous behaviour makes people feel.

Her research has been published in various academic journals, including Science, Nature Human Behaviour, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science and Perspectives on Psychological Science, and has been covered in international media outlets such as the CBC, CNN, Maclean’s Magazine, Forbes, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Naoko Yamamoto

Dr. Naoko Yamamoto was most recently WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage and Health Systems. Dr Yamamoto brings nearly 30 years of experience working on health in Japan and served as Senior Assistant Minister for Global Heath in Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. In this capacity, she was heavily involved in Japan’s global health leadership, including hosting and organizing the International Conference on Universal Health Coverage in 2015 and supporting the compilation of the G7 Ise-Shima Vision for Global Health and Kobe Communique of the G7 Health Ministers’ Meeting in 2016, both of which highlighted the importance of promoting universal health coverage.

Prior to this role, she served in numerous health-related positions within the government of Japan, including as Director General of the Hokkaido Regional Bureau of Health and Welfare, Director of the Health and Medical Division at the Ministry of Defense, and Counsellor to the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations. She holds a medical degree, a PhD in epidemiology and a Masters in Public Health.

Ozge Karadag

Dr. Ozge Karadag works as a Public Health Researcher at the Center for Sustainable Development of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. She earned her Medical Doctor (MD) degree at Istanbul University, her MSc and PhD Degrees in Public Health at Hacettepe University, and holds an Associate Professor of Public Health title in Turkey. She also has a postgrad degree in health promotion from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr. Karadag has more than 15 years of experience working in multidisciplinary teams to conduct research, develop public health policies and programs for different vulnerable/disadvantaged populations. Her main research interests are health care access among vulnerable/ disadvantaged populations, health promotion and education, community mental health, stigma and discrimination, community participation in health care, and sustainable development. She has worked as a consultant for numerous UN organizations and European Commission in addition to different governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Her current work focuses on research, advocacy and training activities regarding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the most vulnerable populations and how to use digital technologies to increase access to health information and care among refugee and disadvantaged local youth in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. She is a member of The Lancet COVID-19 Commission Secretariat since June, 2020.

Radhika Iyengar

Radhika Iyengar is the Director of Education and a Research Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Development of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. She leads the Education for Sustainable Development initiatives and promotes international development for education as a practitioner, researcher, teacher, and manager. Her research interests consist of conducting evaluations of educational programs and international educational development. In addition to directing education initiatives at the Center and conducting fieldwork in over 10 countries, she contributes to the scientific community, focusing on international educational development. She is the Chair of the Environmental and Sustainability Special Interest Group at the Comparative International Education Society. Her latest publication is - Education as the path to a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 in PROSPECTS. She received the Distinguished Early Career Award from Teachers College, Columbia University for her service to the field of international education development in 2020. She received a distinction from Teachers College, Columbia University for her PhD dissertation, Social capital as a determinant of schooling in rural India: A mixed methods study. She received her Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India.

Richard Layard

Health Chair

Richard Layard is an economist who thinks there is more to happiness than just the economy. He is Founder-Director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, and currently Co-Director of the Centre’s Wellbeing research programme. In 2005 he wrote the best-selling book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, translated into 20 languages, and in 2014 a follow-up on mental health called Thrive. He has had huge influence in making psychological therapy more widely available in Britain’s National Health Service. But most important of all he is co-founder of Action for Happiness, an international movement to promote a happier way of living.

Sharon Paculor

Sharon Paculor is the Manager of Special Projects for the Director at the Center for Sustainable Development. She serves as the Production Editor of the World Happiness Report, and oversees happiness and well-being programs and initiatives, including the Global Happiness Council, Science and Ethics for Happiness, and the Ethics in Action program with the Pontifical Academy. For over twelve years, Sharon worked in the architecture, engineering, and real estate industry as a marketing and business development professional focusing on green infrastructure and sustainable workplace environments.

Shun Wang

Dr. Shun Wang is a professor at KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Korea. He obtained the Ph.D. in Economics at University of British Columbia, M.A. in Economics and B.A. in Business Administration at Peking University. His research lies mainly in economic development, subjective well-being, and Chinese economy. His papers were published in Journal of Comparative Economics, World Development, Economic Development and Cultural Change, China Economic Review, Journal of Happiness Studies, and others. He serves as an associate editor of the World Happiness Report series.

Stefano Quintarelli

Serial entrepreneur and former Professor of Information systems, Network services and security. Founder of the first Italian ISP, listed on the stock market, he has played a pivotal role in the founding and development of the Italian internet ecosystem.

An active business angel, he works as advisor to international investment funds and companies.

He was member of the Italian Parliament in the XVII legislature, member of the Commission of Internet rights and duties of the Chamber of Deputies, leader of the Parliamentary intergroup for Technological Innovation. He was appointed as Expert for the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence of the European Commission.

He is Chairman of the steering board of the Italian Digital Agency, delegate of the Italian Government to the Internet Governance Forum, Chairman of the advisory group on advanced technologies of UN/CEFACT, member of the Leadership council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Author of many articles and contributions and speaker at several conferences on digital technology, regulation and competition; his interest is the intersection between technology, regulation and markets.