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What factors predict the feeling of having lived a “good life”? To answer this question, the LIVES Centre launched the collaborative Good Life Data Challenge project, which brings together 32 research teams involving 95 researchers—psychologists, sociologists, demographers, and economists—from Switzerland, Europe, the United States, China, South Korea, and Singapore. The challenge: to predict the answers to three new questions in the 2025 wave of the Swiss Household Panel. These questions ask respondents to assess the extent to which their life has been happy, fulfilling, and interesting (psychologically speaking) so far. The goal: to leverage collective interdisciplinary expertise to advance research on the determinants of a good life. Nicolas Sommet, a researcher in social psychology and research director at the LIVES Centre at the University of Lausanne, who initiated the project, shares the details with us.
How did the idea for the “Good Life Data Challenge” originate?
Our goal was to launch a project that could collectively address a major question about life trajectories using data from the Swiss Household Panel, a national survey that has been in existence since 1999. But we also faced a significant constraint: we could only ask participants two or three very short questions. So, with LIVES, we had lengthy discussions until we arrived at a simple idea: to ask participants to take a moment to reflect on their lives. In 2025, nearly 10,000 people representative of the Swiss population answered three questions: to what extent has their life so far been happy, meaningful, and rich in interesting experiences? The next step was to ask researchers to try to anticipate the participants’ answers.
What do these three questions reveal…?
These three questions correspond to three complementary conceptualizations of the “good life” in the scientific literature: the happy life, defined by the predominance of positive emotions; the meaningful life, known as the eudaimonic life, in which one perceives a sense of direction and meaning in their existence; and the psychologically rich life, characterized by a diversity of experiences. Participating teams can draw on thousands of variables available in the Swiss Household Panel—covering, for example, income, family, religion, social life, health, work, etc.—to attempt to predict participants’ answers to these three questions. The key feature of our method: the data has been collected but is not yet accessible to researchers, who must formulate their hypotheses and submit their analysis protocols before gaining access, thereby ensuring a rigorous approach. Next, the data will be made available; the teams will conduct their analyses according to their protocols; and then, in early 2027, we will compile the results to produce a joint scientific synthesis.
You received 71 submissions. Did you expect such a strong response?
We received 71 submissions from more than 200 researchers. Initially, we planned to select about 20 teams. But given the exceptionally high quality of the proposals, we decided to select 32 projects involving 95 researchers. We did not expect such a strong response. We were also impressed by the diversity of the submissions: the topics covered such a wide range of fields that everything suggests this collective investigation will be very fruitful. This reflects a strong scientific interest in the determinants of a good life and in large-scale collaborative approaches.
What types of researchers and disciplines are represented among the 32 selected projects? Were there any surprising participants?
The 32 selected projects bring together 8 Swiss teams, 13 European teams, 8 American teams, and 3 Asian teams (from China, South Korea, and Singapore). In terms of disciplines, about half of the researchers come from psychology, a quarter from sociology, and the rest mainly from demography and economics. There are both very promising researchers and well-established researchers. Among the notable participants are Shigehiro Oishi and his colleagues from the University of Chicago, who theorized one of the constructs we use here—that of a good life conceived as an interesting life.
What is the advantage of a collaborative approach?
The benefit of this approach is that it allows many teams to work on the same data, resulting in a much more comprehensive understanding than in a project led by a single team. On a topic as broad as the determinants of a “good life,” a single researcher might explore only one or two aspects; with 32 teams, we have a large workforce that brings very different perspectives, interests, and ideas, allowing us to explore areas as varied as family, health, work, life events, economic mobility, inequality within couples, religion, and social relationships.
You are looking to identify the factors that predict the feeling of having lived a “good life,” but haven’t these already been extensively studied?
Yes, of course, but often in isolation. Research generally focuses on a single definition of the good life, whereas here we distinguish three. It also often focuses on a single type of predictor, whereas here we examine dozens. The idea behind the Data Challenge is precisely to bring these different approaches together within a single framework.
What benefits do you hope to see, both for research and for society?
I hope that, collectively, we can establish a general profile of people who feel they have led a good life so far. This could provide useful insights for researchers working on the determinants of well-being, but also, more broadly, fuel the thinking of anyone interested in the question of what makes a life happy, meaningful, or interesting.
What does this project mean for the LIVES Centre in terms of its scientific standing and outreach?
It is a major project on the life course that seeks to understand which aspects of people’s lives, observed over several years, can predict the sense of having lived a good life. It is therefore fully in line with the LIVES Centre’s core themes. We hope it will help advance research, strengthen ties between our institution and top-tier researchers, and raise public awareness of the type of work conducted here.
By Kalina Anguelova