As the lead drafters of the Standards Australia "Measuring and valuing social impact — Guidance on approach and methodologies" Handbook SA HB 204:2022 Huber Social has designed this course to walk participants through the best practice principles outlined.

We recognise the experience of people impacted as critical intelligence to inform effective, sustainable solutions: subjective wellbeing evaluation.

Measuring wellbeing is important to ensure all people have the capability and opportunity to fulfil their potential, and together we rise. However, most approaches to measuring wellbeing impose a particular point of view on what matters for wellbeing.

This fails to serve the people whose needs and aspirations do not align to this dominant point of view, often the people that social initiatives aim to serve.

Therefore, to ensure measurement reflects the needs and aspirations of the people being impacted, we do not impose a point of view on what matters for wellbeing. Instead, we recognise the experience of people impacted as the sovereign truth, providing critical intelligence to inform effective, sustainable solutions.

We measure subjective wellbeing to reveal what matters across different contexts based on how people are experiencing their life, and we employ statistics to identify priority needs.

Through measuring the lived experience of people, our approach makes sure all voices are heard.

The development of the System continues to evolve from both practical experience and a close following of academic literature. Specifically, the measurement system is an application of Amartya Sen’s capability development approach.[1] It is aligned with current thought leadership which posits wellbeing as a ‘thick’ concept (concepts which both describe and evaluate simultaneously) and approaches that advocate for participatory models of wellbeing measurement and development of public policy.[2]

Critically, these approaches argue that specifying what a thick concept such as wellbeing encompasses, must take into account the relevant value judgements of those whose lives stand to be affected by the measurement (which will inform decision-making for policy development or appraisal, for example).

This is a departure from what Fabian et al describe as ‘the social planner perspective’ in wellbeing public policy (approaches that rely on the value judgements of experts about what wellbeing consists of and what data reliably measure it).[3]

Instead, a ‘citizen perspective’ they argue, seeks to utilise co-production methods to democratise the development of metrics and the measurement process and bring together different types of expertise: (1) ‘lived’ experts or citizens who bring expertise pertaining to the value judgements wellbeing public policy should serve and an understanding of contextual factors; (2) ‘practitioners’ who might be people working in organisations/institutions developing programs or policy; and (3)‘academics’ who seek to bring technical rigor to validate metrics and a grounding in theoretical perspectives. Importantly, ‘participation means that people have agency and are not mere receptacles for wellbeing’.[4]

[1] Sen, A. (2001). Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[2] Alexandrova, A. & Fabian, M. (2021). Democratising Measurement: or Why Thick Concepts Call for Coproduction. European Journal of Philosophy of Science, 12 (1): 1-23. Online: https://philpapers.org/rec/ALEDMO

[3] See for example: Fabian, M., Alexandrova, A., Coyle, D., Agarwala, M., & Felici, M. (2021). Respecting the subject in subjective wellbeing public policy: Moving beyond the social planner paradigm. Bennett Institute for Public Policy Working Paper, October 2021, University of Cambridge. Online: https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/Respecting_the_subjective_in_subjective_wellbeing_public_policy_WP.pdf;  Anand, P. (2021). Wellbeing in Public Policy: Contributions Based on Sen’s Capability Approach. LSE Public Policy Review. 2(2): 2, pp. 1-8. Online: DOI: https://doi.org/10.31.389/lseppr.46; Alkire, S. (2015). Capability Approach and Wellbeing Measurement for Public Policy. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Working Paper 94, Oxford University.

[4] Fabian, M., Alexandrova, A., Coyle, D., Agarwala, M., & Felici, M. (2021). Respecting the subject in subjective wellbeing public policy: Moving beyond the social planner paradigm. Bennett Institute for Public Policy Working Paper, October 2021, University of Cambridge. pp 21. Online: https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/Respecting_the_subjective_in_subjective_wellbeing_public_policy_WP.pdf; 

The Huber Social Ethical Review Board is the first and only nationally registered Human Research Ethics Committee focussed on assessing projects measuring social impact.

The Huber Social Ethical Review Board (ERB) is a registered Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Our ethical review procedure complies with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2018 and the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2018.