Health and Wellbeing Symposium

The VIGS Institute (Vienna Institute for Global Studies)  is a new research centre of Modul University, located in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Professor Dr Zoltan Acs, the Institute is the merger of two distinct approaches of research institutes. The vision of VIGS is a merger of the Santa Fe Institute and the RAND Corporation. VIGS aims to blend the best of these two institutes by merging the economic science and complexity science perspectives. VIGS strives to be a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization focusing on rigorous fact-based analysis to tackle society’s most pressing problems. VIGS has assembled a unique corps of researchers noted for their interdisciplinary cooperation.

As we look ahead to the next quarter century, it is obvious there is growing global demand to live well and leaders from many sectors will be measured in their ability to deliver to their stakeholders - citizens, customers, employees, communities and more.  Today the well-being economy stands at nearly $6 trillion annually. We know well-being is multi-dimensional, from mental and physical well-being to social and financial. Well-being is also subjective in some areas, and importantly, well-being must be actively pursued in order to be achieved. Although the pursuit of well-being is ancient and traces back to some of the earliest societies in human history, it has evolved into a crucial market and policy issue in contemporary society. The emergence of global challenges such as the pandemic, structural economic dislocations, the rise in stress and obesity levels, climate changes, increased isolation amid non-stop screen and indoor time.

In our first two day gathering we will convene high-level discussions and receive input from a range of stakeholders and leaders in well-being, health, business, food and nutrition, and other related fields. We will have a few small panels on some of the various areas of well-being including movement, nutrition, and more. The goal is to begin to outline a research agenda that will provide leaders across sectors and other interested parties a strong understanding of well-being, its role in modern society and economy, policies and business models that make well-being more accessible to more people, institutions, polities and more. We will look at some of the work being done on this topic, various measures and elements of well-being, business models for increasing well-being for more people, and areas where more work needs to be undertaken.

VIGS Institute 1^st Summer Seminar Booklet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1daZiVNGNvc5Wy6jNPYYHqVpAyoh406Uh/view?usp=drive_link