About the Statement

Europe is one of the countries with the highest quality of life in the world. This quality of life is influenced by a whole set of observable global changes which are interconnected with each other (mega trends).

• The economic change from a location-bound production to a globalized service society.
• Demographic development (ageing, sinking average life work time).
• Change of the working sphere based on economic and/or personal needs (away from the classical „normal employer-employee relationship“ towards new forms and related topics such as unemployment, new forms of partnership, of entrances and exits, etc.).
• Change of life habits (flexibilization, new consumption patterns).
• Individualization, dissolution of communities (families, enterprises, associations, parties, churches, interest lobbies).
• Intensified competition around limited natural resources, climatic change and other changes of the natural environment.

To secure this into the foreseeable future (next 50-100 years), it is necessary to face some important challenges. Most importantly, the resource base available to “produce” our quality of life today will shrink dramatically mainly due to 2 reasons.

From an economic point of view these changes can be seen as a suboptimal use of capital and with it a degrad­ation of the competitiveness of the Austrian and European economy. A purely monetary understanding of economic development is not sufficient to a comprehensive understanding of these changes. Therefore a broader scientific approach including social aspects, arts and culture is needed.

In an internationally recognized view (OECD, World Bank etc.) it is not only about the preservation and increase of economic capital (tangible assets and financial capital), but just as much the preservation of the socio-economic-ecological system. This system consists of: nature (nature capital), humans (human capital), the relations between humans (social capital) and the durable values such as infrastructures and culture achievements, created from it.

To face these challenges, a substantial reduction of an average citizen’s resource consumption to 1 global ha of ecological footprint (Wackernagel) or 2 tons of CO2 emissions (Merkel) or 5-6 tonnes of non-renewable resources (Schmidt-Bleek) will be necessary.

Our Society for Quality of Life Research has the objective to develop systemic models, strategies and conversion-relevant concepts, which allow less environmental consumption, a fair distribution and an economy, in which the needs of humans for quality of life and sharing the social life are satisfied in the best possible way. For that it is necessary to realize revenues in all forms of capital mentioned based on specific investments.

Scientific prerequisite for that is a well-founded analysis on internationally highest level of topics, such as:

• Systemic relations among the capital forms required (nature, human, social, and financial capital)
• (direct) measurement of quality of life / well-being / happiness, their objective conditions, their subjective perception and their „production “, as well as of its resource base (ecological footprint, rucksacks ...)
• the scientific foundation of natural/societal “limits” (peak everything)
• holistic education and systemic knowledge management both on the individual level and on the level of systems and in the context of efficient and fair knowledge distribution and knowledge passing on,
• general conditions of physical growth within given borders (resource consumption, climatic change and other „borders“)
• prevention in the fields of health, social coherence, environment and economic development
• The role of work end employment (and other micro-, macroeconomic aspects, such as economic growth)
• The role of the financial sector (money, interest rates etc.)
• The role of demographic change (aging and migration)
• How can transitions (deliberate radical changes) take place in complex societies (science, policy public interface)
• Which scientific methods are needed for quality of life research?

From these questions, the main lines of work can be derived. The main work should be organized in a back-casting methodology: how can the world that meets the aforementioned challenges look like and which steps need to be taken now and in the near future.