About

I am an Australian researcher and writer on progress, wellbeing and the future. My scientific research and public advocacy have contributed to issues that are critically important to humanity’s future, including:

• How we define and measure human progress and development (since the 1990s).
• The neglected importance of culture, especially modern Western culture, to population health and wellbeing (since 2000).
• The relevance of quality-of-life and wellbeing research to sustainable development (since 2000).
• Charting the changing patterns and trends in young people’s health and wellbeing to create a new narrative of declining wellbeing (since the 1980s).
• The strengths and limitations of population measures of subjective wellbeing (since 2000).
• Co-authoring a national index of subjective wellbeing, now being widely used in international research (2003).

I hold a bachelor’s degree with honours in zoology and a master’s degree in the history, philosophy and sociology of science and technology. I have worked as a science journalist, strategic analyst, government adviser, and university researcher.

My research approach – transdisciplinary synthesis – is unusual. I range across many fields of knowledge to develop new, common frameworks of understanding. Synthesis strives for coherence in the overall conceptual picture rather than precision in the empirical detail.

My work has been brought together in a book, Well & Good: Morality, Meaning and Happiness (Text, 2004, 2005), available on my website. I have also edited or co-edited and contributed to three academic books: The Social Origins of Health and Wellbeing (CUP, 2001), Measuring Progress: Is Life Getting Better? (CSIRO, 1998) and Challenge to Change: Australia in 2020 (CSIRO, 1995).

I have published about 180 journal papers, book chapters, monographs and specialist magazine articles, and written many articles and essays for leading newspapers and magazines and for broadcast on national radio.

I have addressed a wide range of audiences, both scientific and public, and have served on many boards, committees and advisory groups. In 2013, I was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the community as a researcher, analyst and commentator on population health and well-being in Australia.

Based on 2026 data, my scientific papers have been cited over 7,000 times. Some of my research ranks in the top 5% of all research outputs measured by one metric (Altmetric). My overall ‘research interest score’ puts me in the top 5% of the 25 million members of ResearchGate, a global research sharing network; some of my papers rank in the top 1%. My scores on other research measures (the h-index and i10 index) are considered ‘outstanding’, ‘excellent’, or ‘exceptional’, placing me in  ‘the top tier of researchers’.

Most of my research was carried out over a decade or two after being retrenched from CSIRO Australia at age 50, and while I was on short-term, part-time or unpaid (visiting), appointments at the Australian National University, and as an independent researcher. At ANU, I made several unsuccessful applications for funding from the Australian Research Council (an example of the gap that can exist between research performance and academic standing).

Before settling into a career (and family life) in my 30s, I worked as a labourer and professional fisherman, and travelled abroad for two years through Africa, Europe, the Soviet Union and Asia.  My travels had a profound influence on my life and work, allowing me to effectively step outside Western culture, and see more clearly its defining myths, assumptions and values.

Is life getting better?

I first framed my work with the question, ‘Is life is getting better or worse?’ in the 1990s (the question was perhaps more radical then than now). I believe it is one of the most profound questions of our times.

The answer may seem obvious, or the question so broad as to be meaningless. But there are good reasons why we should take it seriously.

The question reflects a coherence in our lives, socially and personally, that needs greater acknowledgment. How we answer the question bears on almost every issue on the public and political agenda. However, public and scholarly debate rarely reflects this connectedness.

In fragmenting our consideration of life into separate issues, policies, portfolios, sectors and disciplines, we dodge the hard questions of how all these things interact with each other to shape the life we lead and the societies we live in.

A central tenet of modern culture is the belief in progress, the idea that life should get better. Is this the case? If our answer is ‘yes’, we can continue to assume that human history is on the right trajectory, and needs nothing more than periodic course corrections – the task of governments.

If the answer is ‘no’, then the most fundamental assumptions about our way of life – assumptions that have long been broadly agreed and taken for granted – must be re-assessed. The task we face goes far beyond the adjustment of policy levers by government; it demands an open and spirited debate about how we are to live and what matters in our lives.

The answer to the question is not as obvious as it may seem. I approach it from a perspective of human health, wellbeing and happiness. I emphasise the importance of culture, values and stories, and challenge some of our most powerful beliefs about progress, including that we are getting healthier because we are living longer, that the ‘West is the best’ when it comes to human development, and that past life was wretched.

It is not clear, for example, that greater wealth, health and happiness – as we measure them – constitute a better life. This is especially so in developed nations (on which I focus), but it is also increasingly relevant to the developing world as globalisation and modernisation continue apace.

And however elusive a definitive answer might be, the question is still worth posing because it generates other questions about life today that would otherwise not be asked.