FONTAINEBLEAU, France – October 30, 2026 -- INSEAD has received US$3 million in funding from Google.org and Google DeepMind to establish the Research Lab for Human and Organisational Thriving (INSEAD Thrive Lab), a unit that will study how people and organisations function amid continuous technological change.
Thrive Lab sits within INSEAD's Human and Machine Intelligence Institute
The lab is housed under the Human and Machine Intelligence Institute (HUMII), a cross-disciplinary research body whose core academic team includes 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics Philippe Aghion and 2025 Oskar Morgenstern Medallist Phanish Puranam. Its research covers three domains: Learning, Working and Relating.
Winnie Jiang, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, serves as Academic Director of the lab. Lily Fang, Dean of Research and Innovation at INSEAD, is Academic Director of HUMII.
Funding finances PhD awards, a postdoctoral fellowship and an annual global conference
The lab will train emerging scholars working on human meaning and flourishing through a PhD research award and a postdoctoral fellowship. An annual global conference will convene the wider research community.
Research-to-practice partnerships with organisations, schools and governments, along with workshops, talks and dialogues, are intended to turn findings into practice.
Sepi Hejazi Moghadam, Head of Foundations of Science at Google.org, said AI's success will be measured not only by efficiency or productivity gains but by whether it empowers people to live more fulfilling lives.
Announcement came at the INSEAD AI Forum Asia in Singapore
INSEAD made the announcement at the INSEAD AI Forum Asia, held at its Asia Campus in Singapore. The Asia event follows editions in Europe and America in the global forum series. The next edition will take place in the UAE on 27-28 January 2027.