Lord Layard is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, where he founded and directed the Centre for Economic Performance – one of Europe’s leading research centres. He is now Director of the Centre’s Wellbeing Programme and a member of the UK House of Lords where he focuses on education, employment, mental health, and of course, wellbeing policy. Richard’s just-published book Can we be happier? Evidence and ethic explores how teachers, managers, health professionals, couples, community leaders, economists, scientists, politicians, and we as individuals can create a happier world. He is also co-founder of Action for Happiness, an international movement to promote a happier way of living.

Care, Flourishing, Happiness: the Challenge at Home in Everyday Life

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Professor Maria Pia Chirinos holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Navarre, Spain. She is Director for Institutional Relations and Professor at the Department of Humanities at the University of Piura, Perú. From 2012-2015, she was Academic Vice-President and Vice-President for Research, at the University of Piura, and Professoressa Incaricata at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, 2004-2010. Maria Pia Chirinos was Visiting Scholar at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, Notre Dame University, Indiana (USA) and at the research stage at IMABE-Institut für medizinische Antropologie und Bioethik, Vienna, and the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Münster, Germany.

She has been Keynote Speaker at different congresses in Europe, United States and Latin America, and Africa. Publications include: Un'antropologia del lavoro. Il domestico come categoria (The anthropology of work. Housework as a category) and Claves para una antropología del trabajo (The keys to an anthropology of work) which were published in 2005 and 2006 respectively, and The Hand. Perception, Cognition, Action, published in 2017. Her current research interests and publications are on the Philosophy of Work, Care Ethics and Hospitality.

Happiness and the Structure of the Home

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Dr Davies is Head of Education at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Previously he was  Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Economic History at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has also worked at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in Virginia and been a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. A historian, he graduated from St Andrews University in Scotland in 1976 and gained his PhD from the same institution in 1984. He has authored several books, including Empiricism and History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and The Wealth Explosion: the Nature and Origins of Modernity (Edward Everett Root, 2019), with The Streetwise Guide to the Devil and His Works (Edward Everett Root, 2020) to be published imminently.

Home Implosion: Digital Media and the Reinvention of the Private Sphere

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Dr. Maria Bakardjieva is Professor and Chair in Communication and Media Studies at the University of Calgary, Canada. She is the author of Internet Society: The Internet in Everyday Life (2005, Sage) and co-editor of three collections, most recently, Socialbots and their Friends: Digital Media and the Automation of Sociality (Routledge, 2017) with Robert Gehl. Between 2010 and 2013, she served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. She has numerous publications in leading journals and influential anthologies in the area of Communication and Media Studies with a focus on the social and cultural implications of Internet and digital media use in various contexts.

Creating meaningful connected homes: the relationships and dynamics of household-digital technology interactions in fostering wellbeing 

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I studied sociology and the sociology of culture at the Universities of Durham and York. I then went to the University of Sussex to undertake doctoral research in the innovation and use of telematics - one of the early community based developments of the Internet and WWW. The sociological study of the Internet and WWW was in its infancy and I was extremely lucky to be part of an innovative research environment that fostered interdisciplinary research into the WWW in social contexts. After undertaking two Post-doc research projects at the Universities of Durham and Newcastle, I took up my first lecturing post at the University of Sheffield becoming Reader in Digital Sociology in 2014. I founded and ran the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Socio-Digital Research at Sheffield (IRiS). I then was Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University before becoming Professor of Social Inequality at the University of Glasgow. At Glasgow, I founded the Glasgow Social and Digital Change Group – with Professor Andy Hoskins - and we both work with Dr Catherine Happer and Dr Justine Gangneux in co-ordinating that Group.

I have a strong track-record of research funding from UKRI and the EU as well as other research foundations, and I have extensive experience of managing large research teams nationally and internationally. Examples of my areas of research, which has impact embedded in it includes on social exclusion and digital divides, financial exclusion and the e-economy, social media and political inequality, health inequalities and telehealth, welfare services and (digital) identity, local journalism and inclusion and e-policing, ethnicity and communities. I have contributed to research policy by informing strategy, the development of research programmes, and providing recommendations to UKRI, EU and NSF funders. This also includes work on responsible research and innovation (RRI) and open data. My work has had policy impact in terms of inequality and e-inclusion at a global level in South East Asia, Australia, USA, and Europe. I also have a strong track record of civic partnership work that includes working with South Yorkshire’s e-services team, e@syconnects, Swedish regional press and media policy, public and social media communication strategy in Europe, and the development of local services centres in Newham (London).

The impact of domestic happiness on public space

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Agnieszka Maria Nogal is a Polish Philosopher, Political Scientist, Doctor of Humanities in the discipline of Political Science. In the years 1989–1994 she studied at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw. Her master's thesis was devoted to feminism. In 1998 she defended her doctoral thesis under the supervision of prof. Stanisław Czerniak at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences on the relationship between axiology and politics in the Henryk Elzenberg writings. In the years 2001–2003, 2006–2007 she completed her education with studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. In the years 1994-2013, she associated with prof. Stanisław Filipowicz managed the Department of Political Philosophy at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 1999, she has been working at the Department of Political Philosophy of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw. She is a laureate of a foreign scholarship of the Foundation for Polish Science at the European University Institute in Florence (2002–2003). Co-founder and editorial member of the Civitas magazine. Studies in philosophy of politics. In her scientific work, she deals with the philosophy of politics. Her work focuses on the debate between well-known philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Weiler and on civic friendship.

The “Neighbourhood” as a Pivotal Element of the Infrastructure of a Flourishing Society

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David Thunder is a researcher and lecturer in political and social philosophy at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra. Prior to his appointment to the University of Navarra, he held several research and teaching positions in the United States, including visiting positions at Bucknell and Villanova Universities, and a stint as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Princeton University’s James Madison Program. David earned his BA and MA in philosophy at University College Dublin, and his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently preparing two book manuscripts, tentatively entitled May I Love My Country? In Search of a Defensible Patriotism; and Political Order After the Sovereign State: A Perfectionist Case for Consociational Governance.

David’s academic writings include Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Ethics of Citizenship in the 21st Century (edited volume, Springer, 2017), and numerous articles in international peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Political Theory, The Journal of Social Philosophy, and the Journal of Business Ethics. His writings cover a wide range of questions including the pros and cons of individualism, the ethics of financial trading, the complicity of citizens in collective injustice, the concept of moral impartiality, and the scope of duties of beneficence. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times. For more information, see www.davidthunder.com.