About Us
A Decade Advancing Flourishing
Since 2016, the Program has become a global leader in the study of human flourishing, producing research and programming that guides organizations advancing human well-being worldwide.
Our Mission
The Human Flourishing Program studies and promotes human flourishing, and develops systematic approaches to the synthesis of knowledge across disciplines.
Building the Foundation for Human Flourishing
The Human Flourishing Program began with a simple question: What does it mean to live a good life—and how can we study it scientifically?
For centuries, many of the most important questions about human well-being—happiness, virtue, meaning, purpose, and community—were explored primarily within the humanities, especially philosophy and theology. At the same time, modern social science increasingly sought to understand human behavior and well-being through empirical research in fields such as sociology, psychology, economics, medicine, and public health. Yet these traditions rarely spoke to one another in a systematic way.
Harvard epidemiologist Tyler J. VanderWeele recognized that something essential was missing. If flourishing is truly about the full range of what makes life good, then understanding it requires integrating insights from across disciplines. In 2017, he published a landmark paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposing a multidimensional framework for studying and measuring human flourishing—one that brought together insights from the social sciences and the humanities.
The Human Flourishing Program was founded to advance this vision. Since 2016, the Program has brought together researchers from fields including public health, psychology, sociology, philosophy, theology, and education to build a more comprehensive science of human flourishing. By integrating empirical research with long-standing philosophical and theological traditions, the Program works to develop a coherent body of knowledge about what enables individuals and communities to thrive.
Today, our research explores key pathways to flourishing, including family, work, education, and religious community. We also develop new measures and methods that allow flourishing to be studied across cultures, institutions, and societies. Through interdisciplinary scholarship and global collaborations, the Human Flourishing Program seeks to deepen understanding of human well-being and help individuals and communities flourish.
