International Forum for Well-Being

From June 29th to July 1st in Grenoble (Saint-Martin-d’Hères Campus)

 

Heading towards a fair and sustainable society

Following on the success of the 2018 edition, the International Forum for Well-Being comes back to Grenoble in 2022.

For this 2nd edition, which will take place as part of the « Grenoble European Green Capital 2022 » programme, the organisation committee is the result of a collaboration between local authorities (Grenoble-Alpes Métropole and the city of Grenoble), members of Grenoble universities (Université Grenoble Alpes and the Economic Peace Chair of GEM) and civil society with CCFD-Terre Solidaire and the FAIR collective (Forum for other wealth indicators). 

We want to take a step further, in order to accelerate the change of compass that – if it were still needed – the Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced the imperative necessity. It will also be a question of translating well-being into actions and indicators, between the environmental ceiling and the social floor, and of keeping supporting, expanding and nourishing the community of actors  of this change.

More than ever, the International Forum for Well-being must relay testimonies from all over the world to make visible and concrete a vision of development based on Well-being.

The 2022 programme

For this edition, we received more than 120 contributions to the general programme and 40 f in the scientific conference.

Thanks to this co-construction work, the programme will be the current reflection of citizens’ initiatives, scientific reflections, debates and concrete actions from here and elsewhere.

During these 3 days, the Forum will host plenary assemblies, round tables, participatory workshops, open times and cultural proposals in the evening!

The programme in detail is to come very soon!

The goals of the Forum

Accelerate the transition towards a new compass

Because it’s so intertwined with the environmental crisis, the COVID-19 crisis has disrupted the western lifestyle, which is unequal and based on consuming without taking into account the planetary boundaries. The pandemic has confirmed the urgent need to rethink our models of society, and made our planetary interdependencies very real. The various lockdowns made us experiment on a daily basis – mainly because we suffered from the lack of them – some aspects of well-being that are invisible in the common indicators : friendliness and social contacts, freedom of movement, a good health of course, public services and helpfulness among human beings. The second forum will give us the opportunity to take another critical step towards accelerating the change for a new frame of reference. It is time to make life-sized experiments, integrating new norms and scaling things up in those places were decisions are made.

 

Translate well-being into action and indicators, between the environmental ceiling and the social foundation

The first forum addressed the economic aspect and the development model. Held in Grenoble, the newly elected, « European Green Capital 2022 », this second forum will take the environmental issue as a starting point to go one step further in defining and translating this new development model into action. The Forum 2022 will focus on an ecologically sustainable well-being. It will be built around the challenge of holding together the social and the environmental stakes, which will be the common thread for the programme and this call for contributions. It is no longer necessary to define the social and planetary boundaries: the scientists and testimonies from those affected have taken care of it. It is time to take practical steps to take them into account in social and economic organisations, lifestyles and collective choices.

 

Support, develop and nurture the community of change agents

For the past 4 years, the different actors in the forum have continued to work, together and within their own networks, towards integrating this “compass” of well-being and its indicators into the places and moments where decisions are made. The first forum sparked the desire to try, to discuss among territories, researchers and players, to understand… The second forum will raise the opportunity to consolidate the community formed by all those seeking to move from indicators to action. The time has come to focus on open science, hybrid methods and pragmatism. This will allow us to face, understand and even overcome the complexity by relying on scientific, technical and citizen knowledge.

Behind the scenes of the forum

Call for proposals

A Forum built around 3 challenges

1 .The challenge of a society that is « rich for everyone and rich of everyone”: fighting inequality and building a « social foundation”

An ecologically sustainable world would make no sense if it was reserved to a minority. The experience of the yellow vests protests in France revealed how difficult it is for us to reconcile “end of the world and end of the month”. It is yet the most vulnerable who suffer the most from the impact of environmental disruption : exposure to risks, unequal access to services and resources needed to change lifestyles, and therefore health inequalities. And they are also the ones who live the  furthest from the influential and power places where the so-called “transition” policies are being made. This very close interdependency between social and environmental issues is too often invisible or overlooked.

2. The change of model challenge: reducing our footprint and maintaining an
“environmental ceiling”

Existing models on carbon neutrality or biodiversity conservation, two critical pillars for the survival of humanity on Earth, show the need for a dramatic change in consumption and production patterns. On the consumption side, this change in Western societies is associated with renunciation, with the end of a « well-being » based on prosperity and the hope of an always easier life, generation after generation. And on the production side, questioning our development model is worrying, both because of the risks it implies for a certain number of jobs and because of how difficult it is for us to imagine a more energy- and resource-efficient model.

3. The political and democratic challenge: staying the course of  Well-being

Facing the climate emergency, it’s becoming increasingly urgent to take action. However, we also need to take some time to discuss and let things sink in. This paradox, this tension between words and action, urgency and reflection, brings out the pressing need for politics to get involved. It requires finding the right place for actors, citizens and public debate. The reflection on new indicators that are more suited to this « Well-being course » reveals the need for a new convention, an agreement between all.

More than 120 contributions received to enrich the program

In order to make this forum  a place where as many people as possible can share and raise their voices, the event’s agenda will be co-built from the answers to this call for contributions. We will structure different pathways based on the proposed content. The contributions will mainly fuel the workshops and will complete the round tables and plenary sessions. The main ambition of this forum is to facilitate exchanges, knowledge and experience between actors so that we can achieve it all together!

The call for contributions is now closed and has collected more than 120 contributions that will enrich the programme of the International Forum for Well-being.

 

A huge thank you to all the contributors !

Scientific Symposium

A scientific symposium is also organised within the Forum to enhance the research work of these subjects, by the Chair economic peace of Grenoble Management School and the Grenoble-Alpes University.

In 2018, the forum’s scientific symposium dealt with the collective definition, the methods and uses of indicators of living well, citizen participation and the contribution of research to living well. Building on these achievements, the second edition of the scientific conference proposes to take a step further in the reflection on a paradigm shift in favour of Well-being by emphasizing the consideration of interdependencies.

About fourty French and international researchers responded to this Call for papers

A big thank you to the scientific community!

Organising partners

With the support of

GCVE
RF
isere CD
Metro (1)
grenoble_rvb 1
fondation-terre-solidatire-1