It was a fine summer’s day when Sam and I waltzed onto the plane in top hats. Yes, actual top hats. On Ryanair. The cabin crew seem somewhat bewildered, but quite honestly I’m sure they’ve seen worse. The most common questions we got from fellow travellers were if we were lost magicians. Somewhat ironically, people were less happy when we told them we were happiness scientists, on the way to the world’s biggest wellbeing research conference and the hats were crucial to what we were doing there. .
A photo of Sam and I in the airport on the way to ISQOLS
Why did we have to wear our top hats through security? Well, first because we are cheap, and extra baggage on Ryanair is criminal. But more importantly we did it because this year we were off to ISQOLS 2025 – the International Society for Quality of Life Studies – a gathering of the world’s leading happiness experts, meeting in the grand halls of the European Convention Center in Luxembourg, to discuss all things wellbeing. A very serious occasion… which we attended in fancy dress.
Michael and I dazzling the crowds in our attire (Sam and Caspar dazzling naturally)
Why would we do such a thing?
So we created the Happiness Factory. We hid our golden tickets around the conference which attendees had to find and bring to us at our hand. Each ticket was worth between $10 and $500 and participants could , “cash it in” and send the money to a charity we’d mentioned in our recent World Happiness Report chapter. We limited it to five choices for simplicity… we’re talking to happiness scientists, not rocket scientists.
Our charity ‘menu’. One Pure Earth please!
Over the course of the conference, 52 people stopped by to redeem their golden tickets. Some were a little sceptical at first – one even googled “Happiness Factory” when she found her ticket and found a dodgy-looking website (note for next time, have a webpage for this!) – but in the end, everyone walked away smiling. Turns out, doing good feels… well, good.
The results
By the end, participants had directed $2,405 to some of the best charities in the world – that’s our assessment, of course!. They created an estimated 102 WELLBYs (wellbeing-adjusted life years). For the economists among our readers, the UK Treasury would value that at roughly £1.65 million or $2.2 million. Or for the psychologists: that’s about 78 years of depression prevented. Not bad for under $2.5k.
And where did the money go? Most of the donations (56%, $2115) went to our top charity, StrongMinds, and Pure Earth (23%, $150), our most cost-effective promising charity, though some (17%) of our more risk-averse researchers picked GiveDirectly for its high quality data.
Some stats for the nerds (go nerds!)
Reflections
Some of the lovely people we got to hang out with!
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