Sustainable and inclusive wellbeing must define Europe’s competitiveness. Read MERGE’s October 2025 newsletter below.
“When we talk about competitiveness, we are talking about people and their livelihoods,” stated Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the European Union speech on September 10. This edition of our newsletter asks what a prosperous Europe looks like and how we measure it. We move past the critique of GDP to find agreement on its replacement with a new MERGE study analysing over 200 indicators to reveal a common conceptual backbone for wellbeing. We also examine the EU’s latest foresight report, which signals growing political momentum to place people at the core of governance.
We invite you to join our science-policy dialogue on shaping policies for sustainable wellbeing and offer a curated list of readings and podcasts. You will also find updates from our sibling projects, including the joint final conference for ToBe and SPES in January 2026.
See more below.
