The What Works Centre for Wellbeing (WWCW) is an independent, collaborative organisation based in London. It was set up in 2015 to draw evidence together, develop meaningful methods of comparison and produce practical guidance that government, businesses and communities can use to help improve wellbeing across the UK.
The Centre was established with the support of over 17 partners including the Economic and Social Research Council and Cabinet Office. Dr Paul Litchfield is the Chair of the Centre and Nancy Hey is Director.
The vision of WWCW is of a future where the wellbeing of people and communities improves year on year and wellbeing inequalities are reduced. WWCW believes that improving wellbeing should be the ultimate objective of policy and action.
The mission of WWCW is to develop and share robust, accessible and useful evidence that governments, businesses, communities, funders and the general public can use to improve wellbeing across the UK.
The approach of the Centre is independent, evidence based, collaborative, practical, open and iterative.
The Centre is unique in the UK in drawing together government, academia, business, the voluntary sector and funding bodies. This aims to harness that convening power to promote good evidence based practice, to influence policy and to shape the research agenda to address the developing needs of society. The Centre has a small coordinating and representative core team with the bulk of activity carried out by partner consortia of leading British universities. The patron of the Centre is Lord Gus O’Donnell.