Executive Summary

The NTNU WellFare 15-Year Research Program is built on a simple but ambitious vision: wellbeing for all, across generations. We put social participation at the centre—because fair, trusted, and resilient societies are built with people, not just for them.

We believe that universal wellbeing — for people today and for generations to come — is the highest common good and ultimate public value. Our research is not only about understanding the present but also about shaping fairer futures through knowledge, innovation, and action.

To make this vision real, we focus on three interlinked foundational elements:

1. Conditions of fairness – creating just and equitable conditions for people to live well.
2. Experiences of mattering – making sure everyone feels valued and is able to add value and contribute.
3. Outcomes of wellbeing – improving quality of life for individuals, families, organizations, communities, and societies.

Through research, partnerships, and action, we aim to turn these foundational elements of universal wellbeing into everyday realities. Our approach combines rigorous science, creative methods, and close collaboration with municipalities, schools, civil society, and international partners.

Social participation in society and research is central to how we work. In line with the WHO agenda on social participation, we prioritize empowerment, dialogue, and co-creation so that policies and innovations are shaped with citizens—including children, youth, and those most at risk—not only for them. As the host of a WHO Collaborating Centre on Wellbeing and Social Sustainability, NTNU WellFare contributes directly to the WHO wellbeing economy and health equity agenda, developing new evidence, tools, and leadership capacity to help societies move beyond the state of the art and strengthen social participation in policy, practice, and research. Our distinct contribution lies in combining rigorous research, conceptual innovation, and co-created practice to shift welfare systems toward a wellbeing- and sustainability-oriented model. To ensure intergenerational fairness is not only a guiding value but a practice, NTNU WellFare will test and refine tools such as intergenerational impact assessments, youth and future assemblies, and participatory foresight processes that bring long-term perspectives into present-day choices.

The program has a “glocal” identity: while rooted in the Nordic welfare tradition and community development, it is global in ambition and reach - providing both a regional testbed and a platform for international knowledge exchange. At a time of complex and intertwined societal problems such as increasing inequalities, demographic change, geopolitical instability, rising polarization, and climate crisis, NTNU WellFare seeks to strengthen trust, solidarity, and connectedness — both between people, generations and in our relationship with nature. This ensures that wellbeing and sustainability are advanced not only as policy goals but as lived practices of mutual care and resilience and also as drivers for social change.

Vision

Our vision is simple, but bold: wellbeing for all, across generations.

We believe that universal wellbeing — across generations — is the highest common good and ultimate public value. Research and innovation are explicitly future-forming: they help co-create the kind of world people want to live in. Through this work, we envision a world grounded in fairness, mattering, and wellbeing — where everyone has both the right and the responsibility to live well, care for others, and share resources, opportunities, and burdens in equitable and just ways.

It is a vision of societies where division gives way to trust, solidarity bridges differences, and human and ecological wellbeing are pursued together — with Nordic roots and global horizons.

Program Aim

NTNU WellFare aims to generate and mobilize knowledge, practices, and policies that promote social sustainability, wellbeing for all, and intergenerational justice by:

• Generating, sharing, and applying research-based knowledge and theory on fairness, mattering, and wellbeing — including the conditions that enable inclusive participation and sustainable social change in everyday life, in communities, in governance, and in research.
• Strengthening the learning and capacity of civil society, and of public, voluntary, and private actors, to lead, co-create, test, evaluate, and learn from solutions that advance public value and shared goals — ensuring meaningful participation, especially of children, youth, and marginalised groups.
• Developing practical resources — such as frameworks, tools, and innovations — that enable societies to anticipate, shape, and sustain the wellbeing of people, communities, and future generations.

Our Values

Our values define the research culture of NTNU WellFare. They guide how we conduct science, build partnerships, and share knowledge with society.

• Curiosity and courage: We ask bold questions, explore across disciplines, and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions.
• Collaboration and co-creation: We believe knowledge and future-forming solutions grow in the spaces between researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and communities. We view social participation as a right and a driver of legitimacy, trust, and better decisions.
• Integrity and transparency: We make our processes and findings open to scrutiny.
• Care and responsibility: We treat people, data, and society with care, always mindful of the long-term impacts of our work on children, youth, and those who will come after us.
• Trust and solidarity: We work to counter polarization and environmental degradation by fostering mutual respect, connectedness, and solidarity — both across communities and in our relationship with the natural world.

Principles to guide our research and practice

Our principles show how we turn vision and values into practice. They guide how we design and carry out research, how we partner, and how we contribute to change. We commit to:

1. Put wellbeing first. People’s dignity, human rights, and lived experiences are always at the center.
2. Work across boundaries. We connect researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and communities to co-create sustainable solutions.
3. Embrace complexity and systems awareness. We recognize that wellbeing emerges from interconnected systems — social, economic, ecological, and cultural — and we look for leverage points where small changes can create big impacts.
4. Learn by trying. We experiment, test, and adapt until we find what works.
5. Act for the future. Every action is tested against its impact on children, young people, disadvantaged groups, and future generations — ensuring our research and innovations are both future-proof and future-forming.
6. Be open and transparent. We share what we learn, how we work, and the limits of our knowledge — even when it’s messy or difficult.
7. Do excellent research with purpose. We combine scientific quality with real-world relevance, using rigorous and creative methods to produce knowledge that makes a real difference.
8. Be curious and self-critical. We question values, assumptions, and taken-for-granted knowledge—including our own—to keep research honest and society open.

Key Concepts and Themes

Our research is guided by three interlinked and foundational themes: 1) fairness, 2) mattering, and 3) wellbeing. Together, they form a coherent framework for understanding and shaping the social foundations of human and ecological thriving — central to the program’s vision of advancing universal wellbeing across generations.

Fairness concerns the conditions that give people real opportunities to live well; mattering captures the experiences of feeling valued and being able to add value; and wellbeing reflects the outcomes that arise when these conditions and relationships enable individuals and communities to thrive.

These themes guide both the conceptual orientation and the practical focus of the program. They help us understand what societies need to value and nurture, and how policies, institutions, and everyday practices can strengthen fairness, mattering, and wellbeing together. By examining both the enabling and constraining forces, and how these dimensions interact across systems and life stages, the program generates knowledge that supports more just, inclusive, and sustainable societies — where human and ecological wellbeing are advanced in concert.

1. Conditions of Fairness

Fairness is about the conditions that give people real opportunities to live well and to build the capabilities needed to sustain wellbeing over time. We study how interconnected systems and social determinants — such as education, housing, early childhood conditions, health services, digital access, work, democratic systems, and community life — shape people’s life chances and capabilities for wellbeing.

The conditions of fairness encompass multiple dimensions of justice, as described by Isaac Prilleltensky and others. Distributive justice concerns the equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and life chances. Procedural justice relates to the fairness and inclusiveness of decision-making processes — whether people have a voice and influence in shaping the systems that affect them. Corrective justice addresses how societies recognize and respond to disadvantage, discrimination, and harm. Together, these dimensions capture how fairness operates across material, institutional, and relational domains.

A fair society ensures that people have the genuine, socially grounded capabilities they need for wellbeing. This means creating conditions where every child has the best possible start; where individuals can develop their potential and exercise agency without structural barriers; where good work and secure livelihoods are accessible; and where living standards support health, dignity, and participation.

Fairness is also relational: it rests on solidarity, mutual support, and the social cohesion and trust that enable people and communities to thrive together. It therefore requires inclusive, equitable, and sustainable communities and political systems that uphold both individual and collective wellbeing. Fairness also involves preventing ill-health, addressing discrimination, and promoting relational welfare and democratic governance. Ultimately, a fair society pursues environmental sustainability and human wellbeing together, recognising social connection and mutual solidarity — with both people and nature — as essential foundations of protection and shared security.

Key questions:

• What policies and practices are most effective in closing gaps in life chances within and across settings?
• How can intergenerational impact assessments and wellbeing dashboards — combining social, ecological, and subjective indicators — be used to assess and strengthen fairness across generations?
• How can practitioners, leaders and institutions design rules, budgets, and governance structures that safeguard fairness while balancing the needs of current and future generations?

2. Experiences of Mattering

Mattering connects the conditions of fairness with the outcomes of wellbeing by addressing key experiences of human life — the feeling of being valued and of being able to add value.

Mattering concerns how recognition, belonging, and contribution are experienced and enabled across personal relationships, communities, organizations, education, work, democracy, and society. We study what helps people and communities feel seen, heard, and trusted, and what enables them to participate, co-create, and make meaningful contributions in the settings that shape their everyday lives. Mattering thus links the personal and the structural: it is generated not only through interpersonal interactions but also through institutional norms, policies, and practices that determine inclusion, recognition, and opportunity.

A society that fosters mattering is one where people experience belonging and agency, where their voices are included in decision-making, and where their contributions are acknowledged as meaningful to others. When people matter — and know they matter — it strengthens trust, participation, and social cohesion. We study how mattering functions as a mediating and, in some contexts, moderating mechanism linking social determinants to wellbeing outcomes, and how fairness, inclusion, and participation operate as generative processes at individual, community, and system levels. In this way, mattering forms a bridge between fair conditions and lived experiences of wellbeing, contributing to societies in which individuals and communities are both valued and able to create value together.

Key questions:

How can practices, places, and institutions be designed to enable diverse experiences of mattering — including belonging, recognition, agency, and dignity — for people across different contexts and life situations? How can indicators of mattering be developed and applied to understand whether people feel valued and able to add value — and how can these insights inform the design of institutions, services, and decision-making processes?

How can leaders and professionals build cultures and service models where everyone feels they matter and can contribute meaningfully?

3. Outcomes of Wellbeing

Wellbeing refers to how individuals, communities, and societies are able to live and function well within the conditions that make such lives possible. It represents the outcomes that emerge when fair social arrangements enable people to experience recognition, belonging, and contribution — that is, when conditions of fairness and experiences of mattering reinforce one another over time.

Our approach builds on Amartya Sen’s capabilities framework, which conceives wellbeing as the real freedom and opportunity to live a life one values — and has reason to value — while sustaining these opportunities across generations. This perspective highlights that wellbeing is not simply a psychological or material state, but the result of social, institutional, and ecological arrangements that expand people’s capabilities to live well and to contribute to collective life.

We approach wellbeing as a context-dependent and dynamic concept that integrates both objective and subjective dimensions. The objective dimensions concern access to resources, services, and opportunities for participation and protection; the subjective dimensions concern people’s experiences of belonging, meaning, purpose, and psychological safety. Together, these dimensions capture how individuals and groups convert available opportunities into valued ways of living.

In this sense, wellbeing encompasses both the capability to live well and the lived experience of doing so. It is reflected in people’s experiences of health, dignity, and purpose, as well as in collective qualities such as trust, cohesion, and resilience. When social and institutional arrangements are fair and inclusive, wellbeing tends to generate co-benefits across sectors — strengthening health, learning, civic participation, and environmental stewardship.

Evidence shows that societies with smaller gaps in wellbeing experience higher trust, stability, and collective resilience. Our research investigates how patterns of inequality affect the distribution of wellbeing and how social, institutional, and ecological arrangements can promote greater equity. By analyzing these mechanisms, we seek to clarify how wellbeing can be strengthened as both an analytical concept and a societal goal — supporting people of all ages to live meaningful lives and to contribute to conditions that sustain human and ecological resilience over time.

Key questions:

How can wellbeing be embedded as an organizing principle for governance — shaping fiscal policy, planning, and climate action — and what approaches enable this shift across different political and institutional contexts?

What tools help actors and organizations make choices that increase wellbeing fairly and sustainably?

How can decision-makers and system leaders use evidence, indicators, and co-created innovations to shape policies and investments that improve wellbeing now and safeguard it for future generations?

Work Packages

The program is delivered through three interlinked work packages, each with clear aims and deliverables.

Across all three conceptual themes — fairness, mattering, and wellbeing — we examine the practices, leadership, governance, and system changes needed to move from promising local initiatives to large-scale transformation. A cross-cutting perspective on future-forming research and innovation runs through the program: we see research not only as a way to describe the world as it is, but also as a way to imagine and help build the world as it could be. Across all three themes, meaningful social participation is both a principle and a method for moving from local promise to system-level change.

To enable social change for the common good, NTNU WellFare operates at the interface of three knowledge functions. We: 1) understand through foundational and critical research, 2) transform through empirical, generative and action-oriented research research, and 3) scale and sustain through dissimination and translational and capacity-building activities. These functions are analytically distinct, governed differently, and evaluated by different criteria—while remaining mutually reinforcing.

Figure 1 Work packages and links to key concepts

WP1. Fundamental and Theoretical Research (Understand)

WP1 connects directly to our conceptual themes by developing theoretical foundations that clarify what fairness, mattering, and wellbeing mean in practice. It provides the intellectual groundwork for systemic and intergenerational change.

• Advance frameworks on fairness, mattering, and wellbeing.
• Explore the common good as a public value.
• Support WHO’s normative work through synthesis reports and policy briefs.

Purpose: To build a conceptual foundation for long-term, intergenerational sustainability and change towards the common good.

Contributions: Trusted evidence and insights that help set better priorities and guide decisions.

WP2. Empirical and Action-Oriented Research (Transform)

WP2 operationalizes our concepts by testing how fairness, mattering, and wellbeing can be advanced through real-world innovations. It focuses on participation, governance, and system change as levers for transformation.

• Test relational and place-based innovations in municipalities, schools, communities, and organizations.
• Embed participation and co-creation standards so citizens—especially children, youth, and disadvantaged groups—shape priorities, design and implement solutions, and evaluate results across pilots and case studies.
• Examine leadership, governance, and system change — the skills, structures, and collaborations needed to move from small projects to large-scale transformation.
• Explore how decision-makers cultivate the courage and competences required for long-term, relational leadership—including futures-informed budgeting, peer-learning platforms, and leadership programs grounded in fairness, wellbeing, and mattering
• Conduct country case studies for WHO on wellbeing economy practices.
• Document and assess promising practices for scaling.

Purpose: To generate evidence of what works – and might work - in practice today, and how it can shape better and fairer futures.

Contributions: Real-world experiments and safe spaces to try out new ideas and see what works in practice.

WP3. Capacity-Building and Dissemination (Scale and Sustain)

WP3 ensures that the knowledge and practices generated in WP1 and WP2 are anchored, shared, and sustained. It translates concepts of fairness, mattering, and wellbeing into leadership, learning, and institutional resilience across generations

• Develop the Common Good Leadership Academy and NTNU WellFare Learning Labs.
• Establish a Futures & Intergenerational Lab alongside the Practice Labs to test anticipatory approaches, foresight tools, and youth-led futures dialogues that bridge research and policy
• Train leaders, practitioners, and funders in social participation, co-creation, and relational and systemic approaches — including methods, ethics, and governance
• Disseminate WHOCC outputs: case studies, briefs, synthesis reports, and indicators.

Purpose: To strengthen leadership and embed wellbeing approaches across systems so that future generations inherit resilient institutions and fairer societies.

Contributions: Proven approaches and pathways to lasting change that partners and communities can adopt, adapt, and embed in everyday practice.

Analytical Reasoning, Tipping Points, and Strategic Learning

NTNU WellFare’s ambition is to understand and influence systemic change processes by examining how conditions of fairness, experiences of mattering, and outcomes of wellbeing interact across individual, institutional, and system levels over time. The research program investigates mechanisms, feedback loops, and non-linear dynamics, with particular attention to tipping points—critical moments where cumulative changes in practices, norms, policies, or governance arrangements lead to accelerated and potentially irreversible shifts toward more just and sustainable wellbeing systems.

Rather than assuming linear causality, the research program applies a strategic learning approach, using empirical evidence from pilots, labs, and portfolios to continuously identify promising directions, test underlying assumptions, and adapt priorities across phases. Foundational research (WP1) clarifies mechanisms and leverage points; empirical and action-oriented research (WP2) explores how interventions contribute to or hinder movement toward tipping points; and capacity-building and dissemination (WP3) strengthen the institutional and relational conditions needed to sustain and scale change once such tipping points are approached or reached.

Program Logic

Figure 2 presents the overall research program logic of NTNU WellFare and clarifies how research, practice, and learning are expected to contribute to long-term societal change. The model distinguishes between elements that are primarily within the research program’s sphere of influence and those that are shaped by broader societal, political, and economic dynamics beyond the research program’s direct control.

Figure 2 Overall research program logic, inspired by Innovation Fund Denmark (2024, p. 12).

At the top of the model, the Vision/Northern Star articulates the research program’s normative horizon: wellbeing for all, across generations, grounded in fairness, mattering, and wellbeing as the common good. This vision provides direction and coherence, but it is not an outcome that the research program can deliver on its own. Likewise, the long-term impacts—such as wellbeing economies, fairer and more trusted governance systems, intergenerational justice, and enduring wellbeing outcomes—are influenced by multiple external factors, including political priorities, economic conditions, demographic change, and global developments. NTNU WellFare does not claim direct control over these outcomes; rather, it seeks to make a credible and cumulative contribution toward them.

Between vision and long-term impact lie intermediate instances of impact and systemic tipping points. Intermediate instances of impact—such as demonstrated feasibility, early shifts in practices, norms, or decision-making—serve as signals that change is possible and that pathways toward deeper transformation are opening. Systemic tipping points represent critical moments where accumulated changes in governance logics, institutional norms, practices, or policy frameworks may lead to accelerated and potentially irreversible shifts toward more just and sustainable wellbeing systems. These tipping points are not directly controllable, but they can be anticipated, studied, and influenced through strategic action and learning.

The lower part of the model highlights the elements that are primarily within the research program’s control. These include the work packages and knowledge functions (WP1–WP3), the enablers for change, and the strategic learning loops. Through its work packages, NTNU WellFare can determine what questions are asked, which mechanisms and leverage points are explored, how empirical and action-oriented research is designed, and how knowledge is translated into leadership capacity, tools, and dissemination. The research program can also actively cultivate key enablers for change—such as social participation, governance and leadership capacity, data and indicators, trust, and cross-sector partnerships.

Strategic learning loops play a central governing role in the research program. By formulating learning questions, testing assumptions, adjusting project portfolios, and deliberately managing phase transitions (Build → Scale → Anchor), the research program retains the ability to adapt its strategies in response to new evidence and changing contexts. Learning thus functions as the main mechanism through which the research program connects what it controls (research design, partnerships, capacity-building) with what it seeks to influence (emerging tipping points and longer-term societal change).

In this way, the research program logic reflects a realistic systems perspective: NTNU WellFare is designed neither as a linear delivery model nor as a detached observer of social change. Instead, it positions research as a future-forming, learning-driven endeavour that operates intentionally within its sphere of control, while engaging with uncertainty, complexity, and external forces that shape whether and how transformative change ultimately occurs.

How We Work

Research

Our approach combines rigorous science with openness, creativity, and co-creation. This makes our research both excellent and relevant.

• Mixed methods: Qualitative, quantitative, action-oriented and creative inquiries.
• Systems thinking: Understanding how policies, institutions, and lives connect.
• Co-creation and social participation: Citizens, youth, professionals, funders, and decision-makers co-decide priorities, co-design solutions, and co-evaluate results.
• Global learning: Working with partners in Norway, the Nordics, and internationally.
• Future orientation: All research is assessed for its contribution to intergenerational fairness and its potential to shape sustainable futures.

Practice–Research Labs

Our labs bring research and practice together. They provide long-term spaces to test, learn, and scale solutions.

• Data and Stories Lab: Combining statistics with lived experience, creative methods, and storytelling to capture both present realities and future possibilities, with participants involved from problem-framing to sense-making.
• Community and Practice Labs: Long-term partnerships with countries, cities and regions to test fair policies and wellbeing budgets. Children, young people, and disadvantaged groups co-create and test radical welfare innovations and pathways to community wellbeing and belonging.
• Policy Lab: New tools for governments to track wellbeing, fairness, and long-term impact.
• Futures and Intergenerational Lab: Dedicated to applying foresight, scenario, and long-term impact tools that help decision-makers weigh present trade-offs for future generations and embed future thinking into governance.

Capacity-Building, Recruitment, and Democratic Governance

Our capacity-building work unites learning and leadership with democratic governance. It provides arenas where students, staff, and partners co-create knowledge and shape NTNU WellFare’s direction together.

A central aim of NTNU WellFare is not only to generate knowledge but to cultivate the people, partnerships, and institutions capable of carrying this knowledge forward. The research program invests deliberately in capacity-building at every level — individual, institutional, and systemic — to ensure that wellbeing and social sustainability become embedded in research, policy, and practice for generations to come.

We view capacity-building as a shared endeavour. By connecting education, research, and practice, NTNU WellFare nurtures a learning ecosystem where students, staff, and partners co-create knowledge and solutions that strengthen both democratic governance and the public good.

Key objectives:

• Develop future expertise through structured pathways for master’s students, PhD candidates, and postdoctoral researchers linked to the program’s work packages and practice–research labs.
• Create opportunities for experiential learning through internships, research placements, and fellowships with municipalities, WHO, and international partners.
• Foster transdisciplinary competence by training researchers and practitioners in systems thinking, co-creation, and foresight.
• Strengthen leadership capacity through the Common Good Leadership Academy and NTNU WellFare Learning Labs, ensuring that current and future leaders can bridge research and practice.
• Institutionalize wellbeing science by integrating wellbeing and social sustainability perspectives into curricula, doctoral schools, and staff development programs.

Strategic Recruitment and Talent Development

Recruitment under NTNU WellFare is guided by long-term and transdisciplinary competence needs and the principle of open, inclusive participation. We seek to attract and develop diverse talent committed to fairness, mattering, and wellbeing — and to build the next generation of researchers and practitioners able to lead system change for the common good.

We will:

• Prioritize PhD and postdoctoral positions in fairness, mattering, and wellbeing; participatory and creative methodologies; and system governance for wellbeing economies.
• Offer joint supervision and cotutelle arrangements with Nordic and WHO partner universities to strengthen international collaboration.
• Integrate master’s theses directly into ongoing research and practice labs, creating bridges between education, research, and community development.
• Encourage mobility and exchange, including staff secondments to municipalities, WHO offices, and international research institutions, and welcoming visiting fellows and scholars.

Networks, Partnerships, and Exchange

NTNU WellFare will serve as a hub for cross-sectoral and international learning. Our partnerships are grounded in mutual respect, co-learning, and shared purpose — linking academia with public administration, civil society, and citizens.

We will:

• Host Nordic and global researcher networks on wellbeing and social sustainability.
• Establish exchange programs with other WHO Collaborating Centres and key institutions advancing wellbeing economies and social sustainability.
• Support municipal, civil society, and youth partnerships to ensure that knowledge flows both ways — between research and lived experience.
• Co-develop practice communities that connect early-career researchers with local and global actors, enhancing shared learning and innovation.

Democratic Governance and Leadership

NTNU WellFare is built on democratic principles. Governance is not limited to formal leadership but extends to participation and shared responsibility across all levels of the program. We believe that decision-making is strongest when informed by diverse voices — including students, researchers, practitioners, and community partners.

Our governance model promotes:

• Transparency and accountability in strategy, priorities, and funding.
• Participatory decision-making, where staff, students, and partners help shape NTNU WellFare’s direction through open dialogues, assemblies, and feedback mechanisms.
• Shared leadership and distributed responsibility, encouraging collaborative problem-solving and innovation.
• Intergenerational participation, ensuring that youth and future perspectives inform both governance and research priorities.

Governance structures:

• Program Steering Group: Provides strategic direction, chaired by the leaders of NTNU WellFare and including representatives from NTNU leadership, WHO, and key partners.
• Scientific Advisory Board: Composed of leading international scholars to ensure excellence, ethics, and relevance.
• Operational Leadership Team: Coordinates daily activities, supports work package leaders, and ensures integration across research, practice, and education.
• Visiting Scholars, Affiliated Researchers and Research Groups: Internal and external researchers and research environments formally linked to NTNU WellFare through shared thematic focus, methodological expertise, or project-based collaboration. They contribute to the program’s research agenda, work packages, and labs while retaining their institutional anchoring, ensuring openness, transdisciplinarity, and access to distributed expertise.
• Youth and Future Generations Council: Advises the program on intergenerational and participatory dimensions and strengthens democratic voice and inclusion.
• Annual Partnership Forum: Brings together municipalities, ministries, funders, students, and civil society to align priorities, share progress, and co-create future directions.

Together, these structures ensure that NTNU WellFare remains a living, learning, and democratic program — anchored locally, connected globally, and governed by the values it promotes; fairness, mattering, and wellbeing for all.

Phases and Milestones

The program is designed for long-term transformation, structured in three phases.

• 2025–2030 (Build and Test): Establish conceptual foundations; launch WHOCC activities; seed pilot innovations in municipal and educational settings; develop Nordic platforms for building research networks.
• 2030–2035 (Scale and Share): Scale relational and place-based practices; expand WHO and Nordic partnerships; consolidate the Common Good Leadership Academy. Expand glocal exchange platforms to ensure that lessons from Nordic welfare innovations inform global debates — and global insights are translated back into local practice.
• 2035–2040 (Anchor and Sustain): Institutionalize systemic change; embed wellbeing into international and national policies and municipal routines; consolidate indicators and policy tools; and leave a sustainable legacy for NTNU, WHO, and future generations.

At any given phase, NTNU WellFare will prioritise a limited number of core activities, while others operate as enabling or adaptive components.

Relevance, Impact, and Intended Outcomes

The NTNU WellFare program is designed not only to advance knowledge, but to make a real difference in society. Its relevance spans multiple levels — from local communities to global governance — and it connects directly to NTNU’s vision of knowledge for a better world. Our pathways to impact ensure that research is translated into policy, practice, public engagement, and education, while our intended outcomes highlight the measurable changes we aim to achieve. Together, these elements show how the program will move beyond theory to shape fairer, healthier, and more sustainable futures.

Relevance

This program is designed to be relevant for society, science, WHO, and NTNU itself.

• Societal relevance: Responds to deep-rooted and complex challenges such as persistent inequalities, youth mental health concerns, climate pressures, and rising risks of geopolitical instability and social polarization — where no single approach is sufficient. By fostering trust, solidarity, and connectedness between people and with nature, the program aims to strengthen key relational and structural conditions that support fairer, more resilient, and more sustainable societies. It also explicitly integrates intergenerational impact assessments and participatory futures processes, ensuring that the interests of future citizens inform present action and that responses to today’s crises are grounded in long-term responsibility. Scientific relevance: Advances theoretical frameworks and critical, reflexive methodologies that move beyond the state of the art, positioning NTNU as a leader in wellbeing and social sustainability research.
• WHO relevance: NTNU WellFare supports WHO by producing evidence syntheses, indicators, and case studies on wellbeing economies; convening policy dialogues; and contributing directly to global normative work. Through its glocal positioning, the program connects Nordic insights with WHO’s global agenda—translating evidence and tools between international frameworks and local practice. It contributes to WHO’s social participation agenda by developing methods and case studies on meaningful engagement that advance health, equity, and wellbeing, and it strengthens WHO’s growing focus on foresight and anticipatory governance for a fair and sustainable future.
• NTNU relevance: Direct contributions to NTNU’s vision: knowledge for a better world. Contributes directly and indirectly to all NTNU’s Strategic Research Areas (Community, Civil Security, Health and Life Science, Energy and Ocean and Coast). It strengthens NTNU’s interdisciplinary profile, builds international partnerships, and creates new educational pathways in wellbeing, social sustainability, and leadership. It also strengthens NTNU’s role as both a Nordic leader and a globally connected partner in wellbeing and social sustainability research.

Impacts and outcomes

Impact is at the heart of NTNU WellFare. We aim to influence policy, strengthen practice, engage the public, and educate future practitioners and leaders. Our impact also includes building societal resilience in the face of polarization and instability, by strengthening trust and solidarity as essential foundations for universal wellbeing.

• Policy Impact: Evidence syntheses, wellbeing economy pilots, and policy briefs supporting WHO Member States.
• Practice Impact: Leadership training, municipal partnerships, and practical tools.
• Public Impact: Accessible stories, open data, and engagement with citizens and media. People—especially children, youth, and those most at risk—report higher trust, agency, and satisfaction with decision-making processes.
• Education: New Master’s and PhD programs, and executive training for public leaders — preparing future generations of researchers and policymakers.
• Leadership and Decision-Maker Impacts: Decision-makers gain tools and competencies to challenge short-termism and embed wellbeing and fairness into budgeting, planning, and evaluation. Peer-learning networks among public leaders, supported by the Common Good Leadership Academy, will document and share what helps these approaches stick even when political climates shift

The program aims for measurable outcomes across participation, collaboration, collective change, and scientific progress.

• Participatory impacts: Strengthened experiences of mattering, agency, and influence among people—particularly children, young people, and those facing structural disadvantage—enhancing their ability to affect conditions shaping their wellbeing and everyday lives. For practitioners and policymakers, participation results in increased learning and capacity, including greater reflexivity, systems awareness, and confidence to act under conditions of complexity. Together, these impacts support more active citizenship, meaningful contribution, and sustained engagement in shaping fairer and more wellbeing-oriented futures.
• Collaborative impacts: Stronger cross-sectoral partnerships among NTNU, public, private, and voluntary-sector actors across national, Nordic, and international contexts, and creating synergies with the WHO.
• Collective impacts: Shifts toward wellbeing economies, fairness-driven governance, and outcomes of intergenerational wellbeing and justice.
• Scientific impacts: New frameworks and critical evidence advancing the field of wellbeing and social sustainability across institutions and across institutions, and build capacity among early-career researchers.

Why and How This Program Moves Beyond the State of the Art

NTNU WellFare moves beyond the state of the art by combining new ideas, new methods, and new practices into a coherent program for intergenerational wellbeing.

• Conceptual innovation: Advances fairness, mattering, and wellbeing as interlinked dimensions of the common good.
• Methodological innovation: Combines complexity-informed systems science with creative and participatory approaches.
• Practical innovation: Embeds research in municipal and community labs to bridge science and practice.
• Global relevance: Supports WHO and Member States with evidence, tools, and leadership development for wellbeing economies.
• Future-forming innovation: Positions research and innovation as drivers of social imagination and systemic transformation.
• Intergenerational focus: Explicitly tests the long-term impacts of policies and practices on disadvantaged groups, children, youth, and future generations.

The Unique Contributions of NTNU WellFare

NTNU WellFare combines rigorous research, conceptual innovation, and long-term co-creation with municipalities and communities. Anchored in the social sciences but working transdisciplinarily and across boundaries, the program integrates frameworks of relational welfare, public value, mattering, and the wellbeing economy. Social participation is central — both as a method and as a goal — because achieving systemic change toward the common good requires citizens, practitioners, and policymakers to act together.

NTNU WellFare has a glocal identity: it is rooted in the Nordic welfare tradition, yet global in its ambitions and reach. Local and regional partnerships provide living laboratories for innovation, while international collaborations ensure that Nordic insights inform global debates — and that global learning feeds back into local practice.

These unique contributions are expressed in the following ways:

• A true “third mission” program: NTNU WellFare goes beyond the traditional boundaries of academic research. It combines rigorous science with a deep commitment to sustainable societal development. The agenda is not designed in isolation but is built step by step through dialogue with affected actors across public, private, NGO, and philanthropic sectors. It grows out of lived experiences, needs, and barriers — and it seizes windows of opportunity expressed by those who must be part of the solutions.
• Data-driven and people-powered change: The program uniquely integrates large-scale data, indicators, and evidence with people-powered approaches such as co-creation, arts-based research, and storytelling. This dual approach ensures that systemic change is both analytically robust and grounded in human experience.
• Critical and foundational research on public values: NTNU WellFare is one of few programs worldwide explicitly focused on the common good as the ultimate public value. By advancing fairness, mattering, and wellbeing as interconnected research concepts, it helps reorient societies toward values that matter most for sustainable futures.
• A transdisciplinary and intergenerational lens: The program unites disciplines that rarely meet—from social sciences and humanities to health, economics, design, engineering, and natural sciences—to study wellbeing, mattering, and fairness across generations. By integrating foresight and intergenerational assessment, NTNU WellFare transforms traditional wellbeing frameworks from measurement into co-created action, informing fiscal, climate, and social policy choices that seek to endure beyond political cycles. This intergenerational perspective helps ensure that today’s innovative solutions become both sustainable and just for those who come after us.
• Designed for the long term: With a 15-year horizon, NTNU WellFare is built for enduring impact rather than short-term projects. This long-term perspective enables learning cycles, institutional anchoring, and the testing of systemic changes over time.
• Unique global partnerships: As a WHO Collaborating Centre on Wellbeing and Social Sustainability and a partner with networks such as the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll), NTNU WellFare is positioned at the forefront of international knowledge exchange. These partnerships allow local innovations to inform global debates — and global insights to be translated into practice in Norway and the Nordics.
• Transforming the Nordic welfare model: NTNU WellFare makes a direct contribution to renewing and transforming the Nordic welfare model, which is under increasing social, economic, environmental, and demographic pressure. By integrating fairness, mattering, and wellbeing into the fabric of governance and practice, the program helps ensure that the welfare model remains a global benchmark for just, inclusive, and sustainable societies — capable of renewing trust, countering polarization, and fostering solidarity with both people and nature in times of uncertainty.

Why stable and external funding is needed

To achieve its ambition, NTNU WellFare requires basic, long-term funding that goes beyond Norway’s current reliance on fragmented, short-term project grants. Existing funding models — with their main focus on individual research projects — make it difficult to finance a program of this scope. As underscored by OECD reviews and national debates, they often produce a patchwork of initiatives: valuable in themselves, but too narrow and disconnected to deliver the systemic transformation society needs.

NTNU WellFare is built differently. It develops portfolios of interlinked projects, embedded within a coherent 15-year program. This approach demands sustained investment in research infrastructure, strong partnerships, and long-term competence platforms — elements that cannot be secured through competitive, piecemeal calls alone.

Stable financing of such a program creates a structure that makes it possible to bring together multiple research projects in a coherent portfolio. In this way, a broader knowledge platform is built, which more effectively promotes innovation and increases the likelihood that knowledge will be put into use. Moreover, a research program with a co-creation approach can act as a catalyst for collaboration across public, private, and voluntary sectors — helping to develop better solutions to complex societal challenges.

Stable, external funding will enable NTNU WellFare to:

• Ensure continuity, so that innovations are not lost when individual projects end.
• Anchor world-class research environments, attractive to leading scholars and early-career talent.
• Build infrastructure and data platforms (labs, indicators, longitudinal datasets, participatory and creative methods) that power excellence across multiple projects.
• Accumulate and connect knowledge, turning scattered project results into coherent frameworks that shape long-term change.
• Strengthen networks and consortia, by providing collaboration spaces across universities, research institutes, municipalities, and international partners. Stable platforms allow Norway to grow collective capacity and remain a trusted partner in European and global research.

External funding is therefore not about adding more projects, but about creating the stable backbone that transforms activities into a coherent, future-forming mission. With this foundation, every pilot, case study, and collaboration contributes to a larger investment in fairer, more sustainable societies — today and for future generations.

Prilleltensky, I. (2020). Mattering at the Intersection of Psychology, Philosophy, and Politics. American Journal of Community Psychology, 65(1-2), 16-34. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12368