EUniWell is pleased to launch its inaugural Policy Commission on Well-Being in a Covid World, chaired by Stefano Manservisi, former Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development.

Join us for a virtual panel discussion to launch the Policy Commission on 17th June 2020, 14:00-15:30 CET / 13:00-14:30 GMT

From calls for a ‘green recovery’ to building a ‘whole society approach’ to mental health resilience, Covid-19 presents a critical opportunity to rethink the future of well-being. Over the next six months the EUniWell Policy Commission will take evidence from leading thinkers across academia, policy, and practice. We will investigate the most appropriate means for adapting European policy approaches to wellbeing to produce positive, resilient and sustainable outcomes.

EUniWell -- the European University of Well-being -- has come together as a new alliance in response to the Council of Europe’s invitation for member states to pursue a horizontal, cross-sectoral, knowledge-based approach to advance the ‘Economy of Wellbeing.’ EUniWell brings together seven diverse universities and 102 associate partners from seven distinct regions of Europe. It will use its collective research expertise, educational leadership and civic engagement to meet the challenge set out by the Council and OECD.

The challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to well-being give EUniWell’s mission – to understand, measure, rebalance and improve the well-being of individuals, communities, and society – new urgency. Uniting strengths and wide-range expertise of the partnering universities, EUniWell’s network of experts are well positioned to respond.

Panel Discussion

We hope you will join us for our opening panel discussion, featuring:

Stefano Manservisi, Distinguished Fellow, Center for Global Development and Overseas Development Institute. Stefano has had a long and distinguished career as a senior political adviser and civil servant within the institutions of the European Union. He served in the European Commission as Director-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO) and has also held positions as Director-General for Migration and Home Affairs, and Director-General for Development and Relations with African, Caribbean, and Pacific States. A lawyer by training, he enjoys teaching and has been a visiting professor at various universities and research centers.

Judith Barth, EUniWell Chief Student Officer, University of Cologne, Germany Judith Barth is a student at the University of Cologne. After finishing her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations in 2019, she started studying law with a focus on International Humanitarian Law. She completed internships at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and German NGOs. Judith spent several years studying in the USA and Spain. In February 2020, she was elected as Student Chief Officer of EUniWell. She is part of the EUniWell Steering Team and has been closely involved in developing the EUniWell work programme. During the COVID-19 pandemic she works closely with students, researchers and administrators from the seven universities to facilitate an exchange of experiences and best-practice methods.

Professor Matthew Broome, Professor in Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health, and Director of the Institute for Mental Health (IMH) at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Leader in the field of early psychosis and in the philosophy and ethics of mental health.Together with the mental health Trust, , the IMH is providing clinical and operational support to NHS workers at the frontline of tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. The IMH is developing its research response to the pandemic, including a collaboration between HSBC, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, and schools across Birmingham to trial bullying interventions and to support teachers, families, and children during lockdown and in the transition as schools re-open.

Professor Arnold Tukker, Professor of Industrial Ecology and Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University, Netherlands. Arnold currently co-ordinates major programs with key European research institutes in the field of resource-efficiency, constructing the world’s most ambitious and detailed global energy/resource/economic input-output databases and models (EXIOBASE). He is also engaged with work of the UN on the Green Economy Initiative, the Resources Panel, the Ten Year Framework of Programs on Sustainable Consumption and Production, and Sustainable Development Goals.

Professor Christiane Woopen, Professor of Ethics and Theory of Medicine, and Head of the Center for Ethics, Rights, Economics, and Social Sciences of Health (ceres), University of Cologne, Germany. Christiane coordinates and leads several international and national research projects concerning ethical aspects of reproductive medicine, neuroethics, quality of life, aging, digital autonomy and genome editing. She is also chair of the European Group on Ethics of Science and New Technologies and co-speaker of the Data Ethics Commission of the Federal Government of Germany. She currently serves as a member of the Corona Expert Council of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.