ProBrain
Building healthy and resilient societies
As artificial intelligence reshapes the workplace and populations age worldwide, brain capital is under growing strain, yet it remains largely absent from the frameworks that guide national policy.
Investing in brain health and skills can extend healthy lifespans, strengthen place-based economies, and boost workforce performance. Through the Institute for Global Prosperity’s new ProBrain initiative, in partnership with the Global Brain Economy Initiative (GBEI), we’re working to unlock that potential.
“Brain capital is one of the most important assets we have, and partnering with an institution rethinking prosperity itself is exactly the kind of collaboration needed to translate that science into action”
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Latest work
WORKING PAPER
Livelihood Security, Brain Health and the Foundations of Prosperity
Henrietta Moore
The brain economy has given the brain a balance sheet. Brain capital — brain health plus brain skills — is now counted in global and place-based indices, priced by consultancies and carried into the G7 and the G20. This paper argues that the accounts are missing a pillar. None of the sixty indicators now in use measures the security of the livelihoods on which a population’s cognitive capacity is drawn.
KEYNOTE
Cognitive Taxation and Livelihood Precarity: An Agenda for the G20 Brain Economy
Henrietta Moore
Our Co-President Professor Henrietta Moore introduced the concept of Cognitive Taxation in her keynote speech at UNGA81 during the Global Brain Economy Summit 2026. One of the most overlooked consequences of insecure livelihoods is cognitive taxation. Uncertainty about income, housing, or basic needs places a constant demand on our attention, leaving less mental capacity for creativity, reflection, and long-term decision-making. If we want people to thrive, we need to think beyond economic security alone and consider the cognitive burden that insecurity imposes on everyday life.
BLOG
Investing in Brain Health
Harris Eyre, Lenny Mendonca and Remington Tonar
AI has spread faster than any technology in modern history. Within three years of ChatGPT’s release, generative AI has been adopted by 53% of the world’s population—faster than the PC and the internet—while organizational adoption hit 88% last year. Global corporate investment in AI has more than doubled, with much of that money going into physical infrastructure like data centers and power grids.
Cognitive Taxation and Livelihood Precarity: An Agenda for the G20 Brain Economy
Our Co-President Professor Henrietta Moore introduced the concept of Cognitive Taxation in her keynote speech at UNGA81 during the Global Brain Economy Summit 2026. One of the most overlooked consequences of insecure livelihoods is cognitive taxation. Uncertainty about income, housing, or basic needs places a constant demand on our attention, leaving less mental capacity for creativity, reflection, and long-term decision-making. If we want people to thrive, we need to think beyond economic security alone and consider the cognitive burden that insecurity imposes on everyday life. Brain capital isn’t just brain health plus brain skills. It’s the bandwidth people have left to use them.