On 15 April, Prof. Dr. Nicky Pouw officially opened the Amsterdam Social and Economic Wellbeing Research Centre (ASEWeBe) at the University of Amsterdam, marking an important milestone in the development of wellbeing economics as both a research field and a practical policy approach. As Professor of Economics of Wellbeing and lead initiator of the Centre, together with Dr Hebe Verrest and Najah Aoukai, Nicky Pouw welcomed researchers, neighbourhood representatives, policymakers, students, and professional stakeholders who have helped shape this initiative from the beginning.
She emphasized that the Centre builds on years of collaboration with neighbourhood platforms in Amsterdam Zuidoost and Nieuw-West, and would not have been possible without the support of Masterplan Zuidoost, Nationaal Programma Samen Nieuw West, and strategic advisor Najah Aouaki. At its core, the Centre aims to advance a new paradigm of economics in which human wellbeing, not economic growth alone, is central, connecting academic research directly to lived realities and local policy practice.
A strong thread running through the day was the need to rethink how economics itself is taught and practiced. In his keynote, Prof. Dr. Paul Frijters (London School of Economics) challenged conventional indicator-based approaches and argued that economics education must move beyond abstract models and technical indicators alone. His central observation was that economics education needs to focus much more on policy skills and on connecting economic thinking to lived experiences and real societal questions. When economists measure the wrong variables, he noted, they risk misunderstanding what actually matters in people’s lives. This message strongly resonated with the mission of ASEWeBe: developing practical, grounded economic tools that start from how people experience wellbeing in their daily lives, rather than relying solely on top-down indicators.
Dr. Hebe Verrest then demonstrated how this ambition translates into practice through her presentation of the Wellbeing Dashboard methodology and its early findings across six neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. Her presentation made clear that a bottom-up, community-based approach can reveal dimensions of wellbeing that standard municipal datasets often miss.
Three key analytical findings stood out:
- Basic safety forms the shared foundation of wellbeing. Across neighbourhoods, around 70–75% of wellbeing indicators recur, with “basic safety” and “stability and comfort” emerging as the most important clusters. These include financial sufficiency, housing stability, perceived safety, and emotional stability.
- Neighbourhoods follow different wellbeing pathways. Around 25–30% of indicators differ between neighbourhoods, showing that while the foundation is shared, priorities above that threshold vary significantly. Some neighbourhoods are shaped more strongly by labour market access, others by mental health, financial stress, or the quality of the living environment.
- Resident-led data adds substantial policy value. In the Venserpolder comparison, 51% of indicators proved unique to the Wellbeing Dashboard compared to municipal BBGA data, particularly in subjective and relational domains such as stress frequency, emotional stability, and perceived influence in decision-making. This shows how citizen-generated data surfaces hidden forms of deprivation and opportunity that formal systems often overlook.
These findings reinforced the Centre’s broader purpose: not simply to create better indicators, but to build better dialogue between residents, researchers, and institutions.
These themes were taken further during an interactive workshop facilitated by MSc students Lana Rae and Mina Alyat, together with the wider research assistant team. Participants from diverse backgrounds, including neighbourhood representatives, policymakers, researchers, and other professional stakeholders, worked together on three challenging real-life cases involving local wellbeing dilemmas.
Rather than discussing wellbeing in abstract terms, participants were asked to navigate difficult trade-offs faced in practice: how to prioritise limited resources, how to strengthen trust in neighbourhoods where institutional confidence is low, and how to balance urgent material needs with longer-term social and relational wellbeing.
The workshop made clear that community wellbeing cannot be understood through individuals alone but must be approached through the wider neighbourhood ecology: trust, safety, accessibility, social connection, shared spaces, institutional support, and long-term commitment. Discussions also highlighted the importance of changing the narrative around neighbourhoods, not focusing only on deficits, but also recognising existing strengths, networks, and capacities already present within communities.
Photos by Bente Edinga
The event also showcased the survey cart designed by Pim Knops of Studio Tast, an innovative tool that helps bring research directly into neighbourhoods and makes participation more accessible, visible, and engaging. By creating face-to-face opportunities for dialogue, the survey cart reflects the same principle that underpins the Centre itself: research should meet people where they are.
What emerged from the afternoon was a clear sense that wellbeing research is not only about improving measurement. It is about improving relationships, institutions, and the ways in which policy decisions are made.
With the official opening of ASEWeBe, Prof. Dr. Nicky Pouw and her interdisciplinary team have created a new platform where economics, community knowledge, and public policy come together, placing wellbeing at the centre of how cities understand progress and shape their future.