The Happier Lives Institute helps donors and decision-makers to answer this question:
How can we use our resources most effectively to help people feel happier?
Our research combines data from self-reported happiness and life satisfaction scores with insights from multiple academic disciplines, primarily economics, philosophy, and psychology.
The role
The fellowship provides students and recent graduates with the opportunity to gain hands-on research experience and receive personal mentoring from our research team. If you have an interest in wellbeing and global priorities research, we strongly encourage you to apply (and share with your contacts!).
Key roles and responsibilities
We strongly encourage you to work on one of the suggested topics listed below as we believe that making progress on these questions will be particularly impactful. We provide more detail on each topic here.
Empirical topics
- Linearity, neutrality, and comparability in survey responses to subjective wellbeing questions
- What can individuals and the state each do to improve people’s wellbeing, and how do these inform our global prioritisation?
- How promising are psychedelic-assisted mental health treatments?
Theoretical topics
- Using subjective wellbeing to inform longterm
- How do we do worldview diversification?
You can also submit your own project proposal as long as it fits within the scope of our research agenda and matches your interests and experience. We’re particularly keen to hear from people who have expertise in a relevant area and/or a promising angle we haven’t considered yet.
Experience and skills
We’re looking for people who are studying for an undergraduate, master’s, or doctoral degree in a relevant discipline such as economics, philosophy, or psychology. Recent graduates and early-career professionals are also welcome to apply. We welcome applications from people outside academia too, particularly those who are looking to test their fit in a research role. We especially encourage people from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to apply.