A European framework for measuring progress : Fostering the understanding of individual and societal well-being and sustainability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the European Framework for Measuring Progress (e-Frame). It is a coordination project funded by the European Commission (EC) which builds on the latest political directions with particular attention to the priorities identified by the Europe 2020 strategy. Design/methodology/approach – e-Frame aims at contributing to empower the European debate on “GDP and beyond”, taking a broad approach by looking together on social, economic, environmental and global dimensions. Main general actions are coordinating initiatives of different actors to foster the debate by involving all relevant stakeholders through different communication channels and networking activities; streamlining the stocktaking on what has been reached so far and organizing dissemination events. Findings – The e-Frame project is largely contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) and beyond debate. Its main outcomes range from thematic achievements to more strategically and politically oriented documents. Particular attention is devoted to the challenges that are emerging from the stocktaking activities carried out within the project and that have been conceptually divided in those pertaining to the official statistical production and those more related to the possible interactions between official and non-official statistics. Originality/value – e-Frame original features are proposing new ways for delivering information to a wide audience of experts as well as to the society, at large; in defining guidelines for the use of existing well-being indicators by policy-makers; identifying new topics and emerging needs to be put at the center of future research agendas by the EC and by the European Statistical Systems in the area of measuring well-being, societal progress and sustainability.