This network promotes 'the wellbeing state' as a democratic response to the global rise of authoritarian populism. Although criticism of authoritarian populism abounds, there is little agreement about how it might best be countered. Much policy design is restricted by the TINA doctrine which asserts 'there is no alternative' to our current form of democracy in spite of its ongoing association with individualism, colonial logics, and androcentrism. Yet a growing body of research indicates that the rise of authoritarian populism is, at least in part, a response to the last 50 years of these individualistic economic and social policies which have led to deep social divisions and inequality. To reverse this trend we must attend more carefully to how we might support each other to thrive rather than just survive. Although research and policy work into human thriving, referred to as 'wellbeing', is a fast-growing field, its vision is still often dismissed as unrealistic, hampering attempts to translate conceptual research into policy solutions. This network mobilises wellbeing research under the title 'the wellbeing state' as a framework for a robust, resilient democracy, able to withstand the threat of authoritarian populism. With support from Professor Thomas Piketty (who has agreed to provide a keynote speech at our convention) and the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, the network brings together researchers, policy makers, and social and political influencers, to a) consolidate the emerging shared language concerning the causes of, and collective wellbeing solutions to, authoritarian populism; b) begin to collaboratively construct feasible alternatives by re-imagining the democratic state as a 'wellbeing state': our name for the infrastructure required to support collective wellbeing; and c) inform blue-sky policy design to begin actualising alternatives. We will then seek further funding to develop our policy work and support the network to instigate a culture shift to empower institutions of governance to enact democracy in a way that supports and sustains human flourishing. Our transdisciplinary approach is informed by the fact that authoritarian populism has emerged from material conditions and practices across our whole shared way of life together. Further, given the concern that welfare provision is typically majority-serving, Western-centric, and exploitative of minorities, we seek to enact an alternative ethos by involving local and international members, with a specific focus on representatives from minority communities and the Global South (see Case for Support). This network is a first step. It seeks to establish relationships and pilot a vision, methods, and framework, in a manageable way over two years. We aim to then grow into a long-running forum for research development, dissemination, education, and impact, in the form of further projects and collaborative policy development. The network comprises three work packages actualised in four events; supported by monthly management group meetings, quarterly steering group meetings; and three advisory board meetings. Stage 1 workshop - diagnosis: establish a common language, consolidating definitions, and defining relationships between authoritarianism, populism, democracy, and human flourishing. - Stage 2 cross-sector roundtable and forum - framework construction: cross sector presentations and discussion using method of blue-sky policy thinking which proceeds not from what is currently deemed possible, but how to make possible the policies that are needed. Stage 3 synthesis collaboration and convention - consolidation and policy translation: synthesis collaboration with WWCW to facilitate translation of stage 1&2 findings, followed by a convention incorporating keynotes, working group parallel sessions, art exhibits, performances, presentations, and workshops, showcasing the cross-disciplinary and cross-sector work and collaborative ethos of the network.

Earlier last year (April 2018), the UK Office for Students (OfS) noted that students from underrepresented groups such as black and minority ethnic (BME) students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to succeed at university. Coupled with this, research has shown that students from these groups are also more likely to have poorer mental health and wellbeing. However, there is substantial social and political pressure on universities to act to improve student mental health. For example, the Telegraph ran the headline "Do British universities have a suicide problem?" Thus, in June 2018, the Hon. Sam Gyimah, the then UK universities minister, informed university vice-chancellors that student mental health and wellbeing has to be one of their top priorities. Universities are investing substantive sums in activities to tackle student mental health but doing so with no evidence base to guide strategic policy and practice. These activities may potentially be ineffective, financially wasteful, and possibly, counter-productive. Therefore, we need a better evidence base which this project intends to fulfil. Currently, there is a lack of evidence and understanding about which groups of young people going to universities may have poorer life outcomes (such as education, employment, and mental health and well-being) as a result of their mental health and wellbeing during their adolescent years. These life outcomes and their mental health and wellbeing, however, are important for understanding the context of the complex social identities of the young people, such as the intersections between their gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and socio-economic status. Otherwise, these young people may feel misunderstood or judged. Most of the large body of quantitative research on life outcomes tend to focus on one social characteristic/identity of the student, such as the young person's gender or ethnicity or socio-economic status, but not the combination of all of these, i.e. the intersectionalities. Primarily, the reason for this has been the lack of sufficient data. This research draws on data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), which tracked over 15,000 adolescents' education and health over 7 years between 2004-2010 (from when they were 13-19 years old), and the Next Steps Survey, which collected data from the same individuals in 2015 when they were 25 years and in the job market. This dataset also had an ethnic boost, which thus allows for the exploratory analysis of intersectionalities. Currently, there are a number of interventions being implemented to improve the university environment. However, there is a lack of evidence on how the university environment (such as their its size, amount of academic support available, availability of sports activities, students' sense of belonging, etc.) can affect the young person'students' mental health and wellbeing life outcomes. This evidence can be determined through by using the LSYPE data supplemented and by university environment data supplemented from the National Student Survey (NSS) and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Thus this research uses an intersectional approach to investigate the extent to which the life outcomes of young persons who go to university are affected by their social inequality groupings and mental health and well-being during adolescence. Additionally, this research also aims to determine the characteristics of university environments that can improve the life outcomes of these young people depending on their social and mental health/wellbeing background.

The proposed study will generate novel understanding of the process by which commuting behaviours influence personal wellbeing over time. There is growing recognition that traditional measures of economic growth (like GDP) do not necessarily imply improving quality of life across the population. In acknowledgement of this, the UK government has committed to improving their understanding of personal 'wellbeing'. In general terms, wellbeing refers to the extent to which people's lives are going well and this can be affected by lifestyle practices that may influence physical or mental health. Given that commuting is a regularly repeated activity for the working population, it has been suggested that certain travel behaviours, such as long commutes or cycling regularly, could worsen or improve an individual's health and wellbeing over time. However, good evidence is lacking to confirm this. The study will make use of the Understanding Society study, a unique data resource that has been tracking the lives of members of 40,000 households since 2009/10. The same participants have been surveyed once every year, making it possible to understand how and why their lives are changing over time. The proposed study will analyse the first six waves of Understanding Society data. The analysis will identify how the commuting behaviours of employed adults have changed over the period and establish whether and how commuting has affected different aspects of their personal wellbeing. The longitudinal data will allow analysis which considers whether effect takes place after cause and whether greater exposure leads to larger effect. These criteria for causation have not been tested previously. For instance the study will examine if individuals with longer commute times suffer from higher stress levels and reduced leisure time and consequently report lower personal wellbeing overall. By comparison, do those that start walking to work feel that their physical health improves and stress levels reduce, and hence report better wellbeing overall? The study will seek to address such questions. The proposed research has been co-designed by a research team from the University of the West of England (UWE) and policy researchers at the Department for Transport (DfT). DfT has identified specific evidence needs relating to commuting and wellbeing. The research team comprises travel behaviour experts and statisticians from UWE, a health economist from Rand Europe (Adam Martin), and Dr Adrian Davis, an expert in the relationship between transport and health. DfT will chair a project steering group and be joined as project partner by Department of Health and What Works Centre for Wellbeing. A stakeholder interest group will also ensure close links with policy and practice over the course of the study, Outputs from the project will include policy briefing notes and policy toolkit, co-produced by the project partners and the team of researchers. This will showcase new evidence on the relationships between commuting and wellbeing and be used in practice to identify policies and interventions to improve wellbeing through 'healthy commuting' across the working population.

UK national productivity challenges can be analysed from many different perspectives, including firm-specific, industry-specific, organisational-specific, institution-specific or technology-specific perspectives. In the case of the UK, however, the extent to which productivity problems are regional in nature is almost unparalleled amongst the advanced OECD economies. London and the core regions of southern England exhibit very strong productivity performance by OECD and EU standards whereas the non-core regions of the UK consistently exhibit weak productivity performance by OECD and EU standards. These non-core regions consistently display a very long tail of poor productivity firms, operating alongside numerous high productivity firms in London and its hinterland. When compared to OECD and EU averages the non-core tail of poor performing firms hampers national productivity performance by largely cancelling out the stronger performance of the firms in the more prosperous core regions. The result is that UK productivity has barely changed relative to our international competitors in more than four decades. Yet, these longstanding and growing interregional differences in productivity performance are the very aspect of the UK's productivity performance about which we probably know the least. Therefore, in order to better understand the UK's productivity challenges, we employ a place-based lens to investigate the extent to which many UK productivity-enhancing and productivity-inhibiting processes are related to geography. The proposed Productivity Insights Network incorporates these analytical perspectives in a manner that explicitly uncovers the local, city and regional dimensions of productivity performance. This is achieved by developing an innovative multi-disciplinary network though with the thematic productivity challenges aim to unpack the complex interactions between factors of production across different institutional and geographical settings. The network is structured around seven thematic productivity challenges which are addressed and integrated by interdisciplinary teams of experts examining five sets of interaction mechanisms, all operating in a geographical setting. The thematic productivity challenges addressed are: a) Skills, education and training b) Employment, work and labour markets; c) FDI, capital and investment markets; d) Health, well-being, ageing and demographic change; e) Technology, innovation, competitiveness, and enterprise; f) Organisation, institutions and governance; and, g) Land use, transport and infrastructure. The five different interaction mechanisms we examine are: 1) knowledge spillovers and interactions; 2) financial interactions; 3) organisational interactions; 4) social interactions; and; 5) governance interactions. These different lines of enquiry are knitted together via four work packages (WPs), namely: WP1. Network Management; WP2. Thematic Productivity Challenges; WP3. Integrated Analysis; and, WP4 Engagement, Dissemination & Learning Activities. This Sheffield-led Productivity Insights Network proposal will co-produce new social science insights with a range of partners from the public, private and third sectors, with a view furthering our understanding of the UK productivity puzzle and develop actionable outcomes. Beyond generating new perspectives the Productivity Insights Network will also identify policy options best suited to responding to the UK's productivity challenges. This proposal has been developed in consultation with over 50 academics well as with other non-academic partners and networks, and if funded the NW+ will pursue a portfolio of new interdisciplinary activity. The multi-disciplinary Productivity Insights Network will see early career researchers and established scholars working together in order to develop and disseminate new insights through the network to government, businesses and other stakeholder organisations.

In the past few decades, there has been a surge of international interest in the role of the arts and culture in healthcare, public health and health promotion, on an individual and community level. However, the vast majority of research studies have focused on the effects of targeted, time-limited arts interventions on particular patient groups. Yet, much of the arts and cultural engagement across the UK is not confined to specific interventions but involves a more general, ubiquitous participation that can be harder to measure through experimental studies. A select number of public health studies have found associations between cultural participation (including attending concerts, museums and galleries) and self-reported health, as well as inverse associations between cultural participation and mortality risk. However, important questions remain, and to date, there have been no large-scale public health studies examining the impact of the arts in the UK. This project is led by the Centre for Performance Science, an internationally distinctive partnership of the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London, with an extensive track record in arts, health and social research. It explores the effect of (i) activities that involve actively 'doing' (e.g. music, dance, art, photography and drama) and (ii) activities that require physical attendance (e.g. attending concerts, monuments, museums, galleries, cinemas, heritage archives and theatre); (iii) 'home-based' activities (e.g. listening to the radio, watching TV, reading, storytelling, using arts-based apps, digital arts experiences, online music co-production). Our research questions identify the impact of the arts and culture on individual, social and economic measures of health and wellbeing, as well as explore how associations vary between different socioeconomic, geographical and ethnic populations within the UK. To explore these questions, the project is organised into four work packages. Work package 1 will involve assessing existing data including undertaking a meta-analysis of previous studies and exploring a UK cohort study that includes some questions on the arts. However, recognising the limited data currently available, work packages 2 and 3 are based on a large-scale national survey to be carried out during our study. Open to all adults in the UK, the survey will target the general population as well as participants diagnosed with one of four major health conditions facing the UK: mental health, cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory diseases. These conditions have all previously been researched in smaller arts-in-health intervention studies but not at a public health level, and their inclusion will facilitate understanding of the relationships between culture and the individual, social and economic facets of health and wellbeing. A total of 25,000 participants will be recruited to complete an anonymous online questionnaire consisting of demographic questions, validated psychological scales and economic metrics, assessments of arts and cultural participation and self-reporting of health. Work package 2 will explore the questions with a cross-sectional analysis of these data with nested case-control studies; work package 3 will monitor a sub-section of the sample as a cohort for the following year with 6-monthly updates to track longitudinal change in arts engagement. Recognising the complexity of cultural engagement and health, work package 4 will add context to the survey data, with a sub-sample of survey participants taking part in qualitative telephone interviews to explore motivations for, and experiences of, arts engagement across the UK and how this is reported to intersect with health behaviours, perceptions and outcomes. Through the extensive epidemiology methods proposed, an ambitious sample size and nested qualitative data, the findings promise to redefine the value of the arts and culture for public health in the UK.