Scottish Parliament

The ‘I’s have it! – Innovation, inclusion, investment and integration

SUII’s current themed programme of work is focussed on better understanding the features of vibrant innovation systems and how best they can be stimulated and progress assessed. In particular it aims to draw out the implications for policy and practice in Scotland. As we approached the end of the programme Scotland’s Futures Forum hosted a workshop in the Scottish Parliament to bring together the five individual projects in the programme to report back and identify some cross cutting themes.

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Wellbeing Exhibition: Engaging with Policymakers

From 24-26 February 2015 we took over a small space in the members’ lobby at the Scottish Parliament to showcase the work from our recent Wellbeing Programme. The exhibition brought together the findings from our six funded programmes and provided a way of engaging in discussions with MSPs and Government officials. The programme was seeking to address three broad questions:

What influences individual and societal wellbeing?
How best to measure wellbeing and what influences it to help shape and guide policy and practice?
How best to promote and embed improved wellbeing?

The objective of the initiative was to make a contribution to the development of policy and practice in Scotland and elsewhere, including the development of Scotland’s National Performance Framework, ‘Scotland Performs’.

A wellbeing approach attempts to take a balanced look across social, economic and environmental dimensions at understanding what influences the wellbeing of citizens and society at large, and measuring progress. It’s not about any one factor such as health or income, it’s about a range of influences – Charlie Woods, Director SUII

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Reflections on Wellbeing and Democracy

SCVO’s Jenny Bloomfield reflects on Prof. Giovannini’s talk at the Scottish Parliament on measuring and fostering wellbeing.

We were very pleased to welcome Professor Enrico Giovannini to Scotland this week to share his knowledge and expertise on measuring and fostering wellbeing. Jenny Bloomfield from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations reflects below on some of the messages from his talk at the Scottish Parliament on 13^th January.

Earlier this week I attended a lecture on wellbeing by Enrico Giovannini, Professor of Economic Statistics at Rome University and former Minister of labour and social policies in the Italian Government. He explained that one way of getting politicians to consider people’s wider quality of life is by creating a broad set of tests or measures which include things like how well the environment is being protected, what people’s health is like, and how much education people are receiving, as well as money issues. Continue reading “Reflections on Wellbeing and Democracy”