EU Social Progress Index


The is a tool developed by the in cooperation with the and to measure the social progress in the 272 regions of the European Union. The European Union Regional Social Progress Index is based on the framework of the , developed by the , but adapts both its methodology and indicators' set to the European Union context.
The definitive version was released in October 2016. A first draft was released in February 2016. As the main index, computed for more than 130 countries in the world, the EU Regional Social Progress Index is a tool to complement existing welfare indices, evaluating how effectively the economic success of a country is transformed into social progress.
The EU-SPI unit of analysis are the 272 NUTS 2 Regions of the European Union. To do so, it uses 50 indicators. Those 50 indicators are divided in three main dimensions:
Each dimension is divided in four components, which at the time contain from three to seven indicators.
When the index was released, it showed a great contrast between how regions performed if we use the GDP per capita as a measure of well-being, and how they perform if we use the EU-SPI. Some regions, as the capital region of Belgium, which has a large GDP per capita performed poorly in the EU-SPI
The publication of the Index had a notable media impact, including articles in the BBC, The Huffington Post or El País