Sam Thompson

Sam joined nef in April 2006. Since then, he has worked on numerous reports including nef’s (un)Happy Planet Index, European (un)Happy Planet Index and National Accounts of Well-being. He was the lead researcher for a major report on well-being and sustainability, commissioned by the Sustainable Development Unit at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In 2007 he co-authored a review and policy analysis for the Sustainable Development Commission on the environmental dimensions of well-being and potential applications for the Every Child Matters framework.

More recently, he was the lead author of a report for the government’s Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Well-being, on the application of subjective well-being measurement to policy; he co-authored nef’s Five Ways to Well-being, a review of evidence-based well-being interventions, for the same project. He has published in journals including Ecological Economics and The Journal of the Royal Society of Health, and presented his work at national and international conferences and on national radio.

Sam studied at Cambridge and Sheffield Universities and holds a PhD in psychology from the University of London. In addition to working at nef, Sam is a Senior Lecturer in psychology at the University of East London, where he teaches on the MSc in Applied Positive Psychology.