Well-being for the community: the role of business and society
The Well-COMM project intends to go beyond the classic concept and the usual vision of the theme of sustainability, extending it to such an extent as to make it capable not only of ‘containing’ and considering the fundamental pillars of society, the environment and the economy, but also and above all of embracing those elements that are most inherent to the human being as an individual with specific needs, desires, aspirations and talents, especially with reference to those aspects that have a direct and indirect impact on his or her quality of life.
The intention is to devise and implement a new system for considering, measuring and evaluating the well-being of individuals and communities capable of taking on board several of the aspects that have been identified in the literature, with the ambitious aim of integrating them into a perspective that is as all-encompassing as it is unique.
The project adopts a transdisciplinary perspective implemented by an intra-university, inter-faculty and interdisciplinary working group, coordinated by the Faculty of Economics and Law and including researchers from the Faculty of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Medicine.
Starting from the need to scientifically support the attainment by individuals and their communities of a high level of wellbeing and, above all, the action of the various social actors involved (primarily enterprises and institutions) to achieve this result in an effective, fair and sustainable manner, the Well-COM project aims to develop an advanced theoretical-conceptual model for the understanding and analysis of the various constituent aspects of individual and community wellbeing.
The project also aims at developing an operational survey tool capable of grasping, qualitatively and quantitatively, the degree of wellbeing present in communities and that created or modified by the various social actors, as well as the interrelationships between the different aspects constituting the macro-concept of wellbeing in order to be able to appreciate its systemic dimension.
The focus: the community in collaboration with businesses
Well-COM is a research-intervention project that aims to involve families, businesses, institutions, associations and international partners in a process of in-depth analysis and development of knowledge and skills on the theme of the wellbeing of individuals and communities, as well as to unite these actors in bonds of collaboration capable of withstanding time and change. The project also aims to effectively disseminate the knowledge developed both to those directly involved and more generally to the communities affected by the project's activities and direct and indirect impacts (citizens, institutions, third sector). In order to make the research and its impact on society operationally active, it is intended to set up during the project an ‘Observatory on community wellbeing’ that will make it possible, thanks to the study and elaboration of the concepts outlined above, to map and analyse the practices active in Italy in the field of community relations, individual wellbeing and the wellbeing of local and extended communities.
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore contributed to the funding of this research project - D.3.2. 2024 - Well-COMM