Charlottesville, VA – The first sample dataset from the Global Flourishing Study (GFS) initiative is now available to researchers, with the project’s initial full dataset scheduled for release in the coming months through the Center for Open Science (COS).
The GFS, a partnership among Gallup, COS, and researchers at Baylor University and Harvard University, is a $43.4 million, five-year study of 200,000 individuals in 22 countries. The GFS data will be an open-access resource for researchers, journalists, policymakers, and educators worldwide.
While several studies have tracked respondents over time in a single country, the scope and breadth of GFS is unprecedented.
Project co-director Dr. Byron Johnson, Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor, commented: “On a project of this scale, it is critical that the data be available to a broad research audience in a way that it is transparent, ethical, and reproducible. The open-access expertise of COS makes this possible.”
The sample dataset release offers a first glimpse into data that will yield valuable insights over the next several years.
“This sample dataset enables researchers to develop hypotheses and analysis plans ahead of the full dataset release,” said Dr. Huajin Wang, COS’s Director of Programs. "COS offers guidance to researchers for data access, and facilitates transparency and rigor in using this one-of-a-kind data resource.”
Researchers can access GFS data in three ways:
“This will be an extraordinary open-access data resource for the entire global research community and COS’s role is critical to ensuring that this is so,” said project co-director Dr. Tyler VanderWeele, the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard.
As Gallup’s CEO Jon Clifton remarked, “Open access to the Global Flourishing Study’s data will revolutionize the field, enabling thought leaders around the world to uncover insights and innovations that redefine our grasp of human flourishing and ultimately enhance lives across the globe.
Register for webinars taking place in September to learn more about using the sample dataset from this study, preregistration and Registered Reports, and how to gain access to the full dataset when it becomes available.
For more information on GFS’s data access, visit: cos.io/gfs.
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Media Contact:
Alexis Rice, Center for Open Science (COS)
alexis@cos.io
(434) 207-2971
About the Global Flourishing Study
The Global Flourishing Study is the product of collaboration among researchers from Harvard University, Baylor University, Gallup, and Center for Open Science to address significant limitations in current studies of Human Flourishing. The project is based on the creation of an important new data resource: a global, probability-based panel of more than 200,000 participants from 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries. Funders include John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Well-Being for Planet Earth Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, Well Being Trust, the Paul L. Foster Family Foundation, and the David & Carol Myers Foundation.
About Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion
Launched in 2004, Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR) initiates, supports, and conducts research on religion, involving scholars and projects spanning the intellectual spectrum: history, psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, philosophy, epidemiology, theology, and religious studies. The ISR mandate extends to all religions, everywhere, and throughout history, and embraces the study of religious effects on prosocial behavior, family life, population health, economic development, and social conflict.
About Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program
Founded in 2016, the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science aims to study and promote human flourishing, and to develop systematic approaches to the synthesis of knowledge across disciplines. The program’s research contributes to the broad question of how knowledge from the quantitative social sciences can be integrated with that of the humanities on questions of human flourishing and how best to carry out this synthesis of knowledge across disciplines.
About Gallup
Gallup is a global analytics and advice firm with more than 80 years of experience measuring public opinion and human development. In the organization’s own research and in working partnerships with government, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, Gallup develops indicators to measure key global development and social responsibility indicators over time.
About the Center for Open Science
Founded in 2013, COS is a nonprofit culture change organization with a mission to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research. COS pursues this mission by building communities around open science practices, supporting metascience research, and developing and maintaining free, open source software tools, including the Open Science Framework (OSF). Learn more at cos.io.
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