New Research Identifies 20-Component Indicator to Build Global Consensus Beyond GDP
Dr Ida Kubiszewski
What if, instead of measuring progress by the size of our economies, we measured it by how well people and the planet are actually doing?
A new international study has taken a big step in that direction. Researchers from University College London, Hampshire College, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the Club of Rome have uncovered common ground among hundreds of wellbeing indicators used around the world. Their work reveals that, despite differences in culture, method, and philosophy, most measures of wellbeing point to the same underlying values.
Published in Ecological Indicators as part of the EU-funded MERGE project, the study analysed 213 wellbeing frameworks currently in use globally. Using advanced semantic modelling, the team identified where these frameworks overlapped and distilled them into a simple, evidence-based model that could help the world move “beyond GDP.”
“We found that hundreds of wellbeing indicators tell the same story, and that story gives us a chance to replace, or supplement, GDP with a measure that truly reflects human and planetary wellbeing,” said Dr. Ida Kubiszewski, lead author and Associate Professor at UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity.
The story behind the 20-component model
The team’s findings are both intuitive and groundbreaking:
Common ground exists. Across hundreds of indicators, from Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness to the OECD’s Better Life Index, the study found a shared conceptual backbone.
Twenty is the sweet spot. Adding more components increased complexity but added little new insight.
A consensus model emerges. The resulting 20-component indicator balances natural, human, social, and financial forms of prosperity, offering policymakers a manageable, evidence-based way to track true progress.
Why it matters now
This work arrives at a crucial moment. Across Europe, the European Commission is preparing to embed wellbeing measures into policy evaluation through its Strategic Foresight Report 2025. Globally, leaders at the UN Summit for the Future have pledged to develop new metrics of progress “beyond GDP,” and a High-Level Expert Group has been appointed to make it happen.
The 20-component model provides exactly the kind of consensus framework that could turn those political commitments into practical tools. By synthesising what the world already agrees on, it could help governments, institutions, and civil society finally align around a shared vision of prosperity that values people and planet alike.
MERGE and the movement beyond GDP
This research is a part of MERGE, a Horizon Europe-funded project that brings together 16 partners across research, policy, and civil society. MERGE’s mission is to integrate wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability indicators into the heart of governance, helping decision-makers design policies that serve both people and the planet.
The study’s approach, which combines semantic analysis, policy relevance, and practical simplicity, offers a hopeful path forward in the long-running “beyond GDP” debate. Instead of competing indices and fragmented dashboards, we might finally have the foundations of a shared, global measure of what really matters.
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About the Author
Dr. Ida Kubiszewski is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity University College London, where she is Co-lead of the MSc on Prosperity, People and Planet.