I am currently the CEO of the Nova Institute (www.nova.org.za) in South Africa. Nova’s vision is household well-being across Southern Africa. Our overarching goal is to be the professional partner of choice for households and other stakeholders working towards improving the well-being of low-income communities in a responsible way. At Nova, we work closely with households and stakeholders to explore effective combinations of ideas and technologies that create meaningful impact. Our approach is trans-disciplinary, bringing together community members and experts to understand challenges, co-design, and test solutions that enhance quality of life at both the household and community level. The need to assess impact, ensuring thatNova’s interventions make life qualitatively better in ways that are quantifiable, is what originally brought me in contact with ISQOLS. The first ISQOLS conference I attended wasat Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, in 2006. At that stage, my colleague Christiaan Pauw and I were working on instruments to assess the impact of interventions on the quality of life of low-income households. The research ultimately led to the development of two instruments:
1. An instrument to assess quality of life in general (see Murray, M. and Pauw, C.(2022) ‘A novel tool for quality-of-life assessment in the household context’, Int. J. Sustainable Development, Vol. 25, Nos. 1/2, pp.95–113.), and
2. An instrument to assess the particular impact of an intervention on quality of life (see Murray, M., Møller, V., 2025. Case studies in the quality-of-life assessment of cleaner energy interventions through ‘narratives of impact,’ in: Murray, M., Pauw, J.C. (Eds.), Development in the Anthropocene. UJ Press, Johannesburg, pp. 437–473.https://doi.org/10.64449/9781997468554-12).
Recently, I have co-edited a book, Development in the Anthropocene: The tough task of working towards planetary well-being with low-income households. The book, published in December 2025, focuses on locally grounded interventions, co-created with low-income households. This scholarly yet practical volume brings together 29 contributing authors from seven universities, alongside Nova practitioner-researchers, spanning disciplines from philosophy and social science to engineering and field-based practice (see Murray, et al, Development in the Anthropocene: The tough task of working towards planetary well-being with low-income households, 1st ed. UJ Press, Johannesburg.https://doi.org/10.64449/9781997468554
2. How has being a part of ISQOLS benefited your work/research?
The ISQOLS community has all the elements that I find interesting in scholarly and practical work: it supports inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches, and it is an open community where all who are interested in learning more about quality-of-life and indicators to assess impact on quality of life are welcome. I have gained much from interactions with ISQOLS colleagues, and I do my best to attend the annual conference to stay updated on the latest developments in the field of quality of life and well-being studies.
3. ISQOLS SIG Groups - which group(s) does your research most closely relate to?
V. Sustainability, Environment & Well-Being and VI. Measurement & Metrics of Well-Being
