‘Measuring and Valuing City Wellbeing’ project will further develop and trial at scale Happy City’s suite of pioneering and innovative online digital tools aimed at transforming how we approach urban living. This unique set of wellbeing measurement and policy tools work together to support decision makers at every level of urban life, to better measure, understand and improve the wellbeing of people and place, providing integrated solutions to systemic challenges in urban areas. The digital toolkit comprises: • Happy City Index - a powerful progress report on the conditions for wellbeing at a city level, which establishes the foundation from which to improve city wellbeingHappiness Pulse • Happiness Pulse - a world leading interactive survey getting to the heart of how people feel and function in their lives, work and communities • WellWorth Policy Toolkit - converting wellbeing data into social & economic policy outcomes and demonstrating long-term worth of wellbeing improvements on the wider city system. Together these measurement tools enable and support systemic change. Enabling policy makers to make sense of complex relationships between local conditions and policy and help to future-proof cities for resilient urban living. Our work challenges organisations to think and act differently about running cities, and forces them to be more adaptable in their outlook, priorities and processes. Cities know they need to start investing in wellbeing - to ensure future resilience and sustainability - but find it challenging to fit it into their current structures and processes. It represents a huge step forward for local authorities, national charities and other policy makers and service providers. Working with academic partners and an exceptional range of global experts, all three tools have been through a rigorous design, development, consultation and initial feasibility stage. Even at this early stage, they have generated global interest (including being invited to submit them for the annual Guangzho International Award for Urban Innovation), and are now ready for in-depth and at-scale piloting, research and development prior to a national and international launch. The quality of our initial feasibility and development work (part funded by Innovate UK Urban Living support) has generated significant interest from potential urban users - with offers to host these much needed larger scale pilots. We believe this demonstrates that they form a viable commercial proposition, subject to rigorous testing in relevant real-world city environments.

A large body of research shows that improvements in well-being have a significant causal impact on better health. However, these benefits have yet to be quantified. In order for local policymakers to make well-being policy, they need information on (a) the health benefits caused by improvements in well-being and (b) the areas and groups within a city that would most benefit from such improvements. The proposed project consists in the development of an interactive model that provides local policymakers with this information. The well-being policies promoted by this model will result in both improved health outcomes in the long-run (and thereby savings in health spending) and better outcomes in terms of people's well-being. For example, a quantified understanding of the benefits of targetted well-being improvements can result in the local implementation of proven well-being interventions from the Big Lottery National Well-being Programme.

Smarter power systems need consumers to engage willingly with a range of new service offers from power system interests to manage demand and shift and/or reduce demand peaks. This project will seek to understand what is needed to secure that engagement from domestic consumers. It will market test a range of potential smart services across two dimensions: (i) automated/passive vs user-controlled active services; and (ii) motivators based on financial rewards vs motivators based on non-financial rewards known to enhance wellbeing. In theory, the system might gain most 'smartness' from automated demand response services taken up by consumers in return for the modest financial value which that response creates for the system. This project will find out whether this holds true in practice for consumers and how consumers respond to different smart approaches based on different motivational rewards.