Jody Aked

Jody Aked is a researcher at nef’s centre for well-being. She has worked as Lead Researcher on an ongoing project for the Happold Trust, identifying the process and design factors that lead to successful development and higher well-being for residents. The project aims to establish an innovative way of measuring what matters and to pioneer a new approach to support built environment professionals co-produce better outcomes for people and place.

Jody has also led research for the UK Government’s Foresight programme, developing the “Five Ways to Well-being”: simple, everyday tasks that people can do to improve their quality of lifem based on evidence from the latest psychological research. She is currently project managing a large-scale research programme on children’s well-being for Action for Children. This project will examine what public policy would look like if children’s well-being was its central aim and will explore the role of institutional contexts beyond children’s services, like working life, the built environment, media and advertising, which may limit better outcomes for children and young people in the UK.

Prior to joining nef, Jody worked as a Senior Researcher in consultancy and as a Researcher at the Commission for Racial Equality.