Happiness Professor Micael Dahlen was invited to Druk Yul’s Literary and Art Festival in August 2024. Bhutan had also heard about the center and made contact. All of this gave a happy taste for a second visit by Micael Dahlen, which has now led to a Memorandum of Understanding with the Royal Institute for Governance and Strategic Studies in Bhutan for a five-year collaboration “to focus on joint research, education and outreach, founded on the belief that well-being and development can strengthen both productivity and prosperity.”
“This collaboration is about more than academic exchange,” says Professor Micael Dahlen, founder and director of CWWH. “It is about building the frameworks and knowledge we need to support a different kind of progress – where happiness is not a soft value, but a serious force for shaping better outcomes for society and the economy.”
A satellite presence is to be established in Bhutan. The first activity will be a “Happy Progress Forum” in Bhutan in September 2025.