In line with its mission, the development and sharing of knowledge through the World Database of Happiness is one of EHERO’s primary activities. Under the management of ‘Happiness Professor’ Ruut Veenhoven, this database has recorded all scientific research results in the area of happiness since 1984. This project is unique, as it is the first and until now the only database in the world that maps, categorizes and makes openly accessible all scientific findings from an area of scientific inquiry.
The database includes a bibliography of over 15.000 publications about the relationship between happiness and themes such as work, education, health, culture and consumption. The World Database of Happiness is openly accessible and, despite very little having (yet) been done actively towards greater public awareness, it already attracts 50,000 - primarily academically oriented - visitors annually from across the world. And this number of visitors will only increase because of the fact that the subject ‘happiness’ has grown rapidly in popularity in recent years, also driving up the number of scientific publications sharply.
The World Database of Happiness is a ‘finding archive’. It contains abstracts of research findings on the subjective enjoyment of one’s life as a whole, both findings on how happy people are in different times and places and findings on things that go together with more or less happiness. The database includes some 38.000 findings which can be easily browsed in several ways.
The aim of the database is to provide an overview of available research findings on happiness, in particular findings on:
- how happy people are
- determinants of happiness
- consequences of enjoying life or no
If you want to know more about the World Database of Happiness, visit this page. We have many volunteers who work for the World Database of Happiness. Our volunteers are shown here.
Looking for Supporting Partners of World Database of Happiness
To maintain, further develop and enrich the database with unknown knowledge about happiness, EHERO is looking for a “Supporting Partner” for each of the 23 subjects in the database. This is a unique chance for organizations to become exclusive partner of one or more themes, enabling them to establish themselves in the area of happiness. A partnership makes it possible to collect and process existing and unknown research about a theme so that an accurate and up-to-date overview can be provided. These findings are processed by EHERO in a meta publication. If so desired, the partner may become co-author of this publication, and a meeting is organized at which the findings are presented to the organization’s employees and/or business contacts. What’s more, the organization will be promoted on the website of the World Database of Happiness as a partner of the World Database of Happiness and as an exclusive partner of that theme.
Interested in becoming a Supporting Partner of the World Database of Happiness, or want to know more about the possibilities? Please fill out the webform below to receive the brochure.
You can also directly contact Erik Bemelmans for questions regarding the Supporting Partnership of the World Database of Happiness.
Erik BemelmansExecutive Director of EHERO
Email address