Vienna, May 2025: The lead researchers presented the outcome of the largest academic study into financial well-being to date—Beyond Money: Financial Well-Being through a Human Lens. The project was a collaboration between ERSTE Foundation, the University of Tartu and Erste Group banks. 

Over three years, 630 people in seven countries were interviewed about their well-being, everyday lives, and financial perspectives. In addition, more than a year’s worth of anonymised bank transactions from 6,000 Czechs were analysed to compare subjective perceptions with objective financial data. Together, these qualitative and quantitative insights power a rigorous, transdisciplinary, multi-stage, mixed-methods study.  

The researchers’ analysis reveals that financial well-being is a triad of security, freedom and pleasure—and of course, → much more. 

This research serves as the foundation for the Open Future Lab— so the presentation was the perfect opportunity to introduce ourselves to the community. We wanted everyone to get to know the lab, how we work, and how we think. So, we posed questions informed by the triad of security, freedom and pleasure—viewed through a future lens. 

Ultimately, the future is always about the direction we take—which path we choose when a fork in the road appears. That’s why we put up signs. Big ones. In the middle of the foyer. But unlike usual road signs, these ones don’t tell people what’s the quickest way to a certain destination. Instead, they invite participants to reflect on where they want to go in the first place.  

The answers participants provided are somewhere between insightful, funny, and painfully honest. We’ll leave you with a few selected examples:

 

What does long-term mean to you?

• Beyond my generation/afterlife. 
• Further than I can think.
• My unborn child’s lifespan. 

 

How would you celebrate your 200th birthday?

• A party with all my personal AI agents. 
• On Mars. 
• With good people around me. 

 

How would future generations judge us?

• By our ability to be human. 
• Still stuck in wars. 
• Hyper-busy, under-imaginative … or the ones who made it better. 

 

What makes you happy?

• Being in nature. 
• Helping people 😊 
• Communities I belong to. So, I guess a sense of belonging?  

 

How can we make a difference together?

• Listen. 
• Not staying in the bubble. 
• Take action. 

 

What does 2095 smell like?

• Electricity. 
• Blue. 
• Artificial smell of fresh air. 

 

When have you felt truly free?

• After touching/reconciling my fears. 
• On a surfboard. 
• When I quit my job.  

Learnings and responses from this intervention will inspire us with concepts we develop, ideas we share, and workshops we host. Above all, they inspire us (and hopefully, the participants, too) – to think about how we can use our imagination to question the status quo, build optimistic realities and design better futures for people.