Global Flourishing Study Planning Grant

This project is focused on the development of a research, survey, and funding plan to launch a long-term panel study that has the capacity to transform our understanding of human flourishing, religion, and character. The ultimate study would consist of 300,000 individuals in 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries, representing 72% of the world’s population, nationally representative within each country, with five waves of annual panel longitudinal data collection to better understand the causes and consequences of changes in flourishing, religion, and character around the world. The planning grant would allow the research team sufficient time to: 1) solicit additional scholarly comments on the design of the survey instrument; 2) work with the Gallup Organization’s research team to further refine and develop the survey instrument as well as the global panel research design methodology, and will begin literature reviews for proposed future studies; 3) work on developing a co-funding plan with the goal of making the study sustainable for at least a ten-year period; and 4) develop a technical specification for a long-term strategy to address issues of data ownership and access to align with open science best practices. This planning grant will pave the way for what could be one of the most ambitious and influential studies of religion, virtue, and human flourishing ever to be conducted.