Free online journal asks what makes us happy

7 February 2011

An open access online journal devoted to the study of human wellbeing, co-founded by Victoria’s Dan Weijers, has been launched to help academics and practitioners’ worldwide better understand what makes people flourish and thrive.

The International Journal of Wellbeing
(www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org) involves over 50 of the top interdisciplinary wellbeing researchers and experts from Australasia, Europe, North America, and Asia who have formed an editorial team to review content for the journal.

Dan Weijers, an assistant lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Victoria, says the journal has been created to help researchers and practitioners learn from other disciplines to better understand and promote human wellbeing.

“Similarly, policymakers are increasingly being asked to take various aspects of wellbeing into account when making new policies. Since the journal is open access and accessibly written, policymakers from all over the world will be able to gain deeper insight into what promotes wellbeing so that society is able to flourish,” says Mr Weijers.

Co-founder Aaron Jarden, President of the New Zealand Association of Positive Psychology and a lecturer in psychology at the Open Polytechnic says the development of the free access online journal was a natural extension of the research they have been carrying out with over 70 international collaborators of the International Wellbeing Study—one of the largest wellbeing studies in the world.

"The International Journal of Wellbeing breaks down traditional academic and publishing barriers by making the very research that can change the world for the better easily available to those who will benefit most from it. Essentially this new journal provides the enabling conditions for research on wellbeing to flourish and thrive and to flow through to both practice and policy," says Mr Weijers.

The International Journal of Wellbeing has a strong focus on interdisciplinary research, including research from the field of positive psychology, a relatively new sub-discipline of psychology that focuses on what is going right with people rather than what is going wrong—their strengths, levels of engagement and happiness.

Martin Seligman, one of the founders of the field of positive psychology has contributed some of his and his colleague’s research for the first issue of the journal. An interview with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and articles from leaders in the fields of philosophy and economics also feature in the inaugural issue. The development of the journal has been supported by the Open Polytechnic and a generous grant from the Vic Davis Memorial Trust.

Mr Weijers and Mr Jarden co-edit the journal along with Nattayudh Powdthavee, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

To access the first edition of this free online journal, go to www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org.

ENDS

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