Nicky Pouw is an economist with over 25 years of research experience, focused throughout her career on communities, sectors, and countries struggling to reach basic safety, whose needs are ill-represented in standard economic indicators and policy. She proposes a wellbeing-centred alternative to growth-centred economics, developed in her book Wellbeing Economics: How and Why Economics Needs to Change (2020), and is the founding director of the Amsterdam Social and Economic Wellbeing Research Centre (ASEWeBe). She currently leads two major research programmes, detailed below, and serves on the Domain Board of NWO's Social Sciences and Humanities domain, and on the INCLUDE Knowledge Platform.
Current Research Programmes
1. Wellbeing Economy — Amsterdam Wellbeing Dashboard Programme
A participatory research programme developing bottom-up, citizen-defined wellbeing dashboards with residents of marginalised Amsterdam neighbourhoods, currently active in six neighbourhoods and upscaling to nine. The programme combines the capability approach with structured empirical measurement across material, relational, and personal wellbeing domains, and is developing a business case for the Municipality of Amsterdam to adopt the Dashboard as a structural policy instrument from 2027.
Website: www.welzijnsdashboard.nl
2. SDG Interactions and Policy Interventions in Developing Countries (NWO-funded)
A five-year, NWO-funded knowledge brokering and synthesis programme (Dutch Research Agenda), led by Nicky Pouw together with Prof. Dzodzi Tsikata (University of Ghana) and The Broker (The Hague). The programme synthesises research from three interconnected consortia working across Sub-Saharan Africa on how the Sustainable Development Goals interact — positively and negatively — and how these interactions shape policy interventions and outcomes. The programme's most recent conference was held in Utrecht in July 2026.
Website: www.sdginteractions.org
Amsterdam Social and Economic Wellbeing Research Centre (ASEWeBe)
Nicky Pouw is founding Director of ASEWeBe, launched at the University of Amsterdam in April 2026, together with Dr Hebe Verrest as co-Director. The centre develops a new economic paradigm centred on human wellbeing, combining fundamental research with applied, policy-relevant work across material, relational, and personal wellbeing.
Website: https://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/faculteiten/faculteit-economie-en-bedrijfskunde/impact-en-samenwerking/impact/amsterdam-social-and-economic-wellbeing-research-centre.html
NWO Domain Board Membership
Nicky Pouw serves as a member of the Domain Board of the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) domain at the Dutch Research Council (NWO), appointed by NWO's Executive Board.
Website: https://www.nwo.nl/en/social-sciences-and-humanities-ssh