Sam Thompson

Sam Thompson joined nef in April 2006 as a Researcher/Consultant in the Centre for Well-being. Since then, he has worked on numerous reports including nef’s (un)Happy Planet Index, European (un)Happy Planet Index and National Accounts of Well-being. He was the lead researcher for a major report on well-being and sustainability, commissioned by the Sustainable Development Unit at the Department of Envrionment, Food and Rural Affairs. In 2007 he co-authored a review and policy analysis for the Sustainable Development Commission on the environmental dimensions of well-being and potential applications for the Every Child Matters framework. More recently, he was the lead author of a report for the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills’ Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Well-being, on the application of subjective well-being measurement to policy; he co-authored a review of evidence-based well-being interventions for the same project. He has published in journals including Ecological Economics and the Journal of the Royal Society of Health, and presented his work at national and international conferences and on national radio.

Sam holds masters degrees from Cambridge and Sheffield Universities and a PhD in psychology from the University of London. His main research interests include the development of well-being indicators for policy, well-being and inequality, and the role of values in supporting positive behaviour change. Prior to joining nef he worked in academia, where his research focused on subjective experience in music and the arts. He is honorary Research Associate at the Royal College of Music, London, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.