ABSTRACT
It is generally acknowledged that gross domestic product (GDP), being a measure for economic production, is not a perfect proxy for overall welfare. The alternative “Beyond GDP” indicators could deliver the information that is needed to assess social progress in a broad sense. Compared to GDP the role of these indicators in policy-making to date, however, appears to be relatively limited. With the BRAINPOoL project we aimed to understand what drives supply and demand of alternative indicators and to strengthen interaction and communication among scientists, statisticians, policy-makers, NGOs and other actors to better connect these indicators to policy-making. In this chapter we describe our experience with action research in practical cases, as well as a series of knowledge brokerage activities with partly the same audience. We have learned that supply and demand of “Beyond GDP” indicators is a complex “hybrid” development process with numerous actors involved. Much of the knowledge exchanged had to do with technical or methodological aspects of indicators and their interpretation, but also concerned the organizational and policy contexts of their application and legitimacy. The key lesson was the value of networking and community building, which has the potential to ensure continuing knowledge exchange beyond the duration of the project.
